Take the odds on Coronavirus

Take the odds on Coronavirus

By Ed Kociela

There’s a reason why there are so many tall, neon-festooned palaces of debauchery in Las Vegas.

The casino owners study the numbers, and they play by those numbers. It’s how they roll, and how they can afford to keep stretching their glittering castles taller into the sky. That’s why I think we all need to take a deep breath and look at the numbers as the hysteria over coronavirus rises.

Look, we know for sure, that this coronavirus can be lethal. We know it has spread from continent to continent, we know the precautions we need to take, but, we also need to know that in terms of the much larger picture, we are really not at a place that requires panic. Not yet, at least.

There are approximately 7.7 billion people sharing the planet at this time. In the two months since the coronavirus was announced in China, there have been about 100,000 confirmed cases diagnosed as of last Friday. Of those, 3,460 people have lost their lives.

Do the math.

The odds are pretty good that you will not contract the disease, let alone die from it. That said, you shouldn’t get sloppy and you should, as always, take care to minimize your risks. That means washing your hands carefully, following nutritional guidelines, and, most importantly, not going to work, the grocery store, the movie theater, or any other public place if you have the sniffles. It’s just common sense.

I’ve seen grocery store workers wearing face masks in an attempt to protect themselves. According to what I’ve read, the masks do little to prevent inhalation of the bug that is causing such consternation. I’ve also seen people sniffling and snuffling like crazy out and about in public.

Look, whether it’s the common cold or something much more serious, you’re an idiot for jeopardizing the countless other humans you come in contact with. But as far as pandemics go, coronavirus has not quite reached those proportions, not yet at least.

Ashamedly, some in the news business have been hyping the illness beyond proportion.
I saw one headline about the doctors in New York City “pleading” for coronavirus test kits.
Other headlines informed us of the closure of such popular events as South By Southwest in Austin, Texas, a ComicCon gathering in Seattle, and in-person classes at the University of Washington where students will go online for lessons and exams. Discussions are also taking place regarding canceling or postponing the Summer Olympics.

There are warnings about attending large events, small events, travel, public transportation, and taking that cruise. I’ll definitely take that last bit of advice to heart because, well, I’m allergic to shuffleboard and bad lounge music.

Look, it’s always a good idea to be prepared, to remain a step ahead of something like this, and take precautions. But, the public and social media responses have been disproportional to the actual outbreak. In the United States, the largest number of cases are in Washington state, where 84 cases have been diagnosed and 14 have died. Most of the cases are located near Seattle where it seems to have spread from a nursing home. The elderly, of course, are more likely to be susceptible to the illness.

Coronavirus seems to have hit China, the U.S., Italy, and South Korea hardest, however, it is difficult to get a real handle because many who contract the illness show no signs of it and continue their daily lives with no interruption. Only a small amount of the population has been tested, which means that we really have no idea what percentage of infected people are actually dying.

Pandemics are pretty rare. We had the HIV/AIDS pandemic that has killed 36 million people since 1981, with a peak from 2005-2012. In 1968 the Hong Kong Flu took about 1 million lives. The Asian Flu resulted in 2 million deaths from 1956-1958.

You have to go back to 1918-1920 to track a flu pandemic that took millions of lives.

Medical advances have cut pandemics way down and most threats are just that: threats. We were all geared up at one time for the Bird Fu, which turned out to be a bust, killing large numbers of fowl, but pretty much sparing the human population.

There were concerns about the Swine Flu that proved unwarranted. We made it through.
And, we are more than likely going to manage our way through the coronavirus.

Facebook took an unprecedented step in promising to remove content with spurious information and conspiracy theories from its pages back at the end of January when coronavirus was first being discussed.

The truth is, if you rely on Facebook for factual information on anything from politics to medicine, you are a likely candidate for a Darwin Award, especially when there are websites from the World Health Organization and Centers for Disease Control only a few clicks away with valid, scientific information.

In fact, the CDC has already issued a statement saying that while the outbreak of coronavirus is alarming, those in the U.S. should be more concerned with the flu, which the organization predicts will kill 10,000 and infect up to 26 million this season.

It’s sad that while we watch the president and his sidekick politicize the disease and what is being done to combat it nothing is mentioned about some of our nation’s bigger killers, particularly guns, which took 15,292 lives last year, not including suicides. Coronavirus, however, doesn’t have a powerful lobbying group like the NRA to coddle it, otherwise, you could be sure nothing would be done to combat it regardless of how many eventually die.

It is always good to be cautious. It is always good to be aware of. It is always good to use common sense.

While I probably, at this point, would not cancel a flight, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t attend South By Southwest, ComicCon, or the Olympics. But, to be honest, I wouldn’t have been going to any of those places anyway even if there was no such thing as coronavirus.

I will remember the lessons my mom taught me: wash your hands thoroughly, cough or sneeze into the crook of your arm, and eat good food.

Oh, yeah, she’d probably also tell me to play the house odds and everything else would turn out just fine.

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