Is the hysteria over the Corona Virus pandemic justified?
Is the hysteria over Coronavirus/Covid 19/China virus and the subsequent emergency measures governments all over the world are now employing justified? If you ask governmental officials and the media than the answer is unanimous yes, and no one is allowed to question the governmental/media manufactured consensus. However, once you start researching the facts, a different picture emerges.
The main component of why the Corona virus hysteria is justified and why the extraordinary measures which include whole countries going into lock-downs are justified over this new virus is because of the “curve” hypothesis. The "curve" theory refers to the projected number of people who will contract COVID-19 over a period of time versus the ability of health systems to cope with them. It says if you contain a virus early enough through lock-downs and other draconian measures you will reduce the rate of infection, help hospitals and medical staff to deal with the infected cases and thus reduce mortality rates.
This all sounds true very and common sense, so the question arises why haven't there been any lock-downs or any other emergency measures in previous times when viruses were causing mass deaths? For example In 2015 flu/influenza killed 28,330 people in the UK and in 2018 it killed 26,408 people in the UK alone. A flu season is around three months, so this means that around 9.000 people died on a monthly basis, over 300 people a day, and yet there was zero media hysteria over this and not a single emergency measure was enforced to curb the rampaging virus.
Another example is the epicenter of the Corona virus outbreak in Europe, Italy. As of March 2020 around 6,000 Italians died because of Corona virus. However in 2017 flu/influenza killed 25,000 people in Italy alone. Again, there was zero media hysteria over this and not a single emergency measure was enforced to curb the rampaging virus. BTW, more than 99% of Italy’s coronavirus fatalities were people who suffered from previous medical conditions, according to a study by the country’s national health authority, meaning people who were healthy before contracting Corona virus almost always recovered.
Italian soldiers enforcing a lock-down.
People would say that this is because there are vaccines against types of flu, while there are none against Corona virus. That's true. However, there were no vaccines ready for Swine Flu in 2009 when it hit the world. Hundreds of millions of people were infected by it and hundreds of thousands died because of it before a vaccine was developed. Yet no emergency measures, no lock-downs and no media hysteria was introduced in 2009 when an unknown virus was killing hundreds of thousands of people worldwide. Here is Dr. Wolfgang Wodarg, the former chairman of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe Health Committee repeating what many doctors, Professors of medicine and health experts are saying around the world, that Coronavirus is a new flu virus and the hysteria around it is basically unscientific and is doing more harm than good.
Now imposing emergency measures over virus fears are not something to be taken lightly, they suspend people's freedoms and civil liberties and may open the door to authoritarian and even totalitarian measures. Take for example Turkey, a country where as of 19 march 2020 there were two known fatalities concerning Corona virus. In Turkey, tens of people were arrested by the police for simply posting about the disease online. The Turkish authorities say those were arrested for posting “fake and provocative” reports on coronavirus outbreak on social media. The Turkish authorities say also that these were just the first arrests in a long list. People would say that Turkey has an authoritarian regime and is not a good example. Fine, what about Israel?
Israel's acting Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
In Israel, a democratic western country, where there were two fatalities from Corona virus and yet the whole country is expected to be put under a complete lock-down with its democracy being suspended by its acting Prime Minister. Acting Prime Minister Netanyahu, who lost the last elections (even though his party “Likud” got the most seats in parliament, his overall parliamentarian block did not), is still in power after he suspended the Israeli Parliament over “health concerns”. Incidentally The Israeli parliament was about to pass laws prohibiting a politician which is facing criminal charges in court of acting as a Prime Minister. Benjamin Netanyahu is facing three different cases of criminal charges in the Israeli courts, and would have been barred from acting as a Prime Minister if those laws were passed. Also, Netanyahu has suspended all courts in Israel from adjourning except in cases of emergency, again out of “health reasons”, thus postponing his own trials indefinitely. This is all happening in country with, as of yet, 2 deaths from Corona virus.
The point this article is trying to convey is not that you should not worry over Corona virus, it is a new type of virus which is highly contagious and can cause a higher rate of mortality than say the common flu, just like many other viruses in recent history. The point is not to blindly accept whatever the media or government is telling you about the measures they are using to stop the spread of Corona virus, measures as the examples above show can be easily be abused by the people who enact them.
