Media Promotes Panic Regarding Coronavirus

Masks, hand sanitizers and other assorted items are now lacking resources to some city, states and islands in Asia. Singapore with a population of 5.6 million is now having a face-mask problem. Families in the island of Malay Peninsula are hoarding items and the government ends up subsidizing masks so other families can also have them. The hoarding of face-masks and sanitizers can be now compared to water during a drought. Pharmacies are reported to have massive shortage of the items.

As of the past weekend Singapore had 89 cases of coronavirus or an equivalent of 0.002% of the population is infected. But despite that, Singapore's government is much more open about COVID-19 numbers than China is being.

As of Tuesday the cases of COVID-19 in the United States are about 53 with a total population of 300 million people.

Some newspapers and articles also sell misleading information about the coronavirus. The media just adds anxiety and does not convey the scope of the disease in the United States and they did not note that COVID-19 is less deadly than the flu in the United States.

According to a report published last Feb. 12, the virus's destructive potential had concealed one encouraging side of the outbreak and that is about the 82 cases of the virus including all of the 14 in the United States only showed mild symptoms that only require a small medical intervention.

According to some reports it showed that the flu is more deadly than Coronavirus, it may have affected cases in the United States but thus far it has claimed zero lives.

Reports also show that health authorities are now managing the 60,000 sick people and are furthermore studying the disease, some questioned how to have a more effective response to the disease.

It is just shown that some parts of the media don't care about the facts and they more focused on spreading misleading pandemic information.

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention stated that coronavirus is definitely less deadly and it has zero fatality rate so far compared to the 14,657 cases of influenza in the United States that were identified during the end week of Feb. 15. The CDC also estimated that from October 1 through February 15 there had been between 10 and 41 million cases of the flu in the U.S causing a range of deaths between 16,000 and 41,000.

So compared to the fatality rate of coronavirus that has 0% and the influenza that had 16,000 - 41,000 cases of death, which is more deadly?

John Allen Paulos, a university math professor wrote in the New York Times last Feb.18, that short terms and short sighted approach can easily scare and trick the minds of people. The approach is difficult to resist especially when the media uses hard facts to show harsh evidence. And in this way minds of people can grow dangerously anxious about the problem.

Coronavirus was also blamed for the death of seniors who are already suffering from other chronic illnesses like diabetes, and the truth is that coronavirus just contributed to the other illness that might have had more deadly effect than the COVID-19.

Now the main problem is figuring out the total number of infected people, the bottom line may still be a mystery. Patients that have been tested and are now in the healthcare facilities are already included in the tally but what about those who are being treated in a different way without having a formal test of the virus or the people who might have been infected by the disease but shows no symptom of it? And the latter part is tricky and people now kept talking about the rising deaths of the disease.

COVID-19 doesn't show how infectious it is compared to other deadly viruses and considering the cases are just mild and the problems are now being attended in China.

Nothing will be accomplished if the government and media will just push through about accelerating the hold of power in this case. The only ones who will benefit are the ones who increase the price sales of the facemasks.