In what has become the greatest meme generating
headline after Donald Trump’s presidency and Justin Trudeau in blackface, the
COVID-19 coronavirus has captured our collective imaginations like little else.
Always a repository for the uneducated, social media is rife with all manners
of fear-mongering, false information, mass hysteria, and public scorn stronger
than flat-earth advocacy and liberal-bashing. If Trumpism divided us, Corona-Pocalypse
‘20 appears to have us all headed for the loony bin.
This is a very heavily-layered issue. So, for
something a little different, I thought I would try a sort of ‘call and
response’ style for this piece. Except I
will be doing all the calling and responding.
Like a ‘frequently asked questions’ column, which the government of New
Brunswick has now issued, I will lob some commonly bantered slogans or
statements, and respond to them accordingly. I have no intention of doing a
research thesis for this, but I will do my best to stick to accepted facts, or
at least facts accepted by people trying their best to be impartial and
open-minded.
Call
#1:
The common cold kills hundreds/thousands/millions of
people every year.
Response
#1:
Okay, let’s discuss.
What is the ‘common cold’? It’s a virus, much like the flu (that’s short
for influenza), and shares similar symptoms, except that they are usually less
severe and subside more quickly. I’m
sure people die from the cold, but according to the CDC, it poses minimal risk of
death. You would need a significantly compromised immune system for this to be
a real worry. COVID-19 is not a cold, and it is not even influenza. It is more
in line with pneumonia, with which it is most often compared. Comparing the two
is apples and oranges.
Call#2:
I’m not old and I’m not medically vulnerable or
fragile, so I’ll be okay.
Response
#2:
Good for you. It is disheartening to know so many
people choose not to think beyond their own health. I can’t help but imagine
these are the same people who leave their garbage in the food court for the
cleaners to pick up after them, throw their Budweiser cans out the window while
out for a rip, or steal from tip cups.
If you fit this description, you should learn about how people carry
viruses, even if the virus doesn’t actually make the carrier sick. You may be
playing hot potato with diseases, and you might even luck out on unloading it
before the music stops. But you are eventually passing it on to someone, and ‘better
them than me’ is so much worse than being selfish.
This is all very much the same as the argument against
anti-vaxxers, who also fall in the above category of ignorance. Just because
you either don’t understand it, choose not to accept it, or flat out don’t
care, you’re actually endangering all of us. And as a result, it is indeed my business.
As I said earlier, I’m not here to conduct a symposium
on the nature of viruses. I just don’t buy any excuses at this point in
history. We once lived in a time when
sneezing meant you were casting off demons (hence ‘bless you’). Or that there
were only four elements—air, fire, earth and water. Or that the world is flat.
All of these are scientifically, categorically, and unequivocally false.
Opinion can’t be used here, no more than it is not an opinion that two plus two
is five. Viruses happen, the inoculated will pass them on, and vaccinations
work. But before it even gets to that point, due diligence in personal hygiene
will slow that down significantly.
Call
#3:
It’s just a matter of time, why shut down our social
order when it’s pointless?
Response
#3:
Ah, the good ole ‘why make my bed when I’m just going
to get back in it again’ argument. The flaw here, of course, is that not making
your bed will not make me sick, unless I’m sharing it with you—and most likely
I’m not. A more apt comparison would be
staring at what feels like an insurmountable mess in your garage. You could
look at it and say ‘what’s the use?’ Or,
you could focus on one feasible part of the chore—say, cleaning your workbench,
or taking your redemptions to the depot.
There may yet be lots of mess, but you’re one step closer to your goal.
Now, say there are five people in your family, and each one takes on one job.
Eventually, you have a cleaner garage, and one day it may even be completely
clean.
So hard to believe?
Well, diseases have been eradicated using this same philosophy. You won’t
manage to vaccinate everyone, but if more and more people follow better hygiene
and take precautions available to protect themselves, eventually the disease
will disappear. It has happened to
smallpox and polio. When was the last time you had diphtheria? Again, this is fact. No one prayed it away.
So is it worth it to disrupt the economy in the
interest of trying to contain this virus? Since it is not expected that a
vaccine will be available before spring 2021, the best option we have is to
slow it down as best we can. It will be
inconvenient. Dying is also inconvenient. Which leads me to…
Call
#4:
You’re being over-dramatic… you’re fear-mongering… you’re
paranoid…
Response
#4:
Am I? Since January 1, 2020, in less than three
months, according to the World Health Organization on March 8 (three days
before I wrote this), there were about 106,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and
nearly 3600 deaths, over 101 countries (out of 195). A western, first-world country like Italy,
with around double Canada’s population and every bit as strong an economy and
infrastructure is on complete lockdown. And the scary part is how fast it
happened. The first cases were confirmed on January 30. Six weeks later, and
over 12,000 confirmed later, the entire nation is shut down. Talk about your inconvenience. It’s worth
mentioning that Vatican City is a sovereign nation within the city of Rome, and
even they have a confirmed case. Someone
keep an eye on Pope Francis. He’s not exactly a spring chicken.
What’s more, Italy is considered the country of origin
for outbreaks in at least twenty-four other countries. Keep in mind Italy is a
G7 country. Only a few weeks ago a New Brunswick school went forward with a
planned trip to Italy, before any policies were developed or implemented.
Imagine how many thousands of Maritimers have been down south, overseas, or in
close contact with people who have.
Today, New Brunswick has confirmed its first case. It is here. It is not
paranoia. I wonder, how close does it have to hit home before it becomes a
credible threat? It was easy to dismiss when it was still in China, literally
the other side of the world. But that was a few months ago.
Call
#5:
Turn off the media and use common sense. Wash your
hands!
Response
#5:
We can agree on the hands thing. I saw a one-panel
comic recently that showed an alarm going off when some guy comes out of the
washroom without washing his hands and everybody stares up at him. If only it
were that easy!
Many people over the last few years have expressed to
me that social media and the news are cesspools of negativity. And negativity
breeds more negativity. No one likes a Negative Nilly.
While that may be so, denying actual world events is
going to cause infinitesimally more harm. Look, the news is depressing. The
fact is, news is primarily things that are out of the ordinary. No one needs to
know about how many old ladies were helped across the street, who adopted a
puppy from the SPCA, and who celebrated their fortieth wedding anniversary.
These are the little victories that happen to us all the time, and they are
celebrated accordingly, usually within a small circle or community, and are no
less important—just not newsworthy to the masses. Where we fall short is that
we forget about all these things that fall in the shadow of the much less
common bad things that happen, and tend to affect more people. I have always
believed we have a civic duty to be aware of regional, national, and
international news. If we choose to plug our ears with our fingers and sing
loudly out of key, we are essentially absconding responsibility. It’s easier to
just close the garage doors and concede that you’ll be parking outside from now
on. You can do that if you like, but don’t
complain to me when you’re scraping a foot of ice off your windshield.
There is a happy medium. You can watch the news,
interact on social media and discuss world issues without being a Debbie
Downer. It is still possible to be polite in the face of so much ignorance. You
may not convince anyone of anything, and maybe you don’t have to. But to bury
your head in the sand is taking the easy way out. We have fundamental freedom
of expression. To abuse it is wrong, but to abstain from it is equally harmful.
There are plenty of other calls to which I could
respond, but some are just not worth the time. Any that involve the terms ‘libtard’
or ‘snowflake’ need not even be acknowledged. Trolls are gonna troll. When all is said and done, a very substantial
percentage of the world’s population will be either infected or affected with
what experts are rightly saying is one of the most serious threats to public
health in memory. It is not hyperbole if the facts are backing it up. And they
are.
You can believe what you like. I’m just offering a
wedge of lime for your Corona.
