Good piece, worth clicking over
I & I Editorial Board:
“…The hysteria over the coronavirus has hit, if you’ll pardon the expression, fever pitch. The media are full of dire prognostications about the future, while online sites run scary data projections showing potentially millions dying from the coronavirus, also known as COVID-19. And of course, financial markets have cratered, investors fearing the worst.
But is the hysteria warranted? What do we really know about this virus? There are, according to the most recent estimates, roughly 128,000 people with the COVID-19 virus, spread over 111 countries. So far, about 4,700 people have died.
The problem is, no one knows if those numbers are even close to correct. Reports of new cases keep arising, and anecdotal reports of mass graves for COVID-19 victims in Iran and body disposals in China do little to encourage optimism…
…Yet because the flu hits so many people during flu season, the death toll is high. Last year, in the 2018-2019 flu season, 61,000 Americans died from the flu, about 12 times the total global toll for COVID-19 so far. The season before that, it was 80,000 dead.
How do the 4,700 COVID-19 deaths worldwide stack up so far to deaths from the plain old flu? Michael Fumento, who has written extensively on epidemics and science for three decades, reminded us earlier this week in the New York Post: “Flu, by comparison, grimly reaps about 291,000 to 646,000 annually.”…
…This year, Townhall columnist Jack Kerwick cites Centers for Disease Control data to remind us “that between October and Feb. 22, there have been 45 million cases of the flu in the United States, 560,000 hospitalizations, and 46,000 fatalities.”
Where’s the hysteria over that?…
…it was a good idea for President Donald Trump to speak to the nation on Wednesday night about the COVID-19 threat, and what the government is doing about it. He struck a presidential note, cautioning against hysteria and urging Americans to work together to beat the coronavirus, regardless of political beliefs.
While we need to remain concerned and vigilant, the hysteria — much of it driven by an irresponsible U.S. media seeking to whip up fear and division to remove Trump from office — is getting out of hand…
…don’t blame Trump for this. China didn’t tell the world about its exploding problem with the virus until late in the game. Trump acted early, and aggressively, and was criticized for it.
Since then, the very same Trump-hating U.S. media have relentlessly whipped up both fear and hysteria, with some even hoping for COVID-19 to become “Trump’s Katrina” or “Trump’s Chernobyl.”
These are people who would rather get rid of Trump than save your life. Please remember that.
Americans, and U.S. businesses, need to reject the politically driven hysteria. Yes, there are likely to be thousands of new cases, as is inevitable with a pandemic of this sort. And, sadly, there will be more deaths. But we will get beyond this. Hysteria is no replacement for facts…”