Why are there so many people here who claim the coronavirus isn’t an issue?

Lack of education on statistical occurrence and a lack of understanding of what a pandemic entails in the first world due to no experience with the such a thing. If they don't have it+nobody they know has it then it's being overhyped. We see this all the time, best frequently occurring example I can think of is of people who don't evacuate before hurricanes. They can't imagine the flood because it hasn't happened yet, but you just know the woe is me will begin once they get wrapped up in it.

good post

why are people pushing back? Because we've heard similar terror stories for a dozen different viruses and they have yet to be serious threats. It's normal to roll your eyes a little when we're told for a 13th time that this is a big deal.

And we are c. three months into this and we are measuring US deaths in the single digits.

And it's been beaten in China already, which suggests it won't be long lasting elsewhere.

wetfoot wrote:

why are people pushing back? Because we've heard similar terror stories for a dozen different viruses and they have yet to be serious threats. It's normal to roll your eyes a little when we're told for a 13th time that this is a big deal.

Exactly. This is just like the way over hyped "global warming" catastrophies that never happen.

CaptainPainInTheButt wrote:

wetfoot wrote:

why are people pushing back? Because we've heard similar terror stories for a dozen different viruses and they have yet to be serious threats. It's normal to roll your eyes a little when we're told for a 13th time that this is a big deal.

Exactly. This is just like the way over hyped "global warming" catastrophies that never happen.

don't drag me into your climate change denialism

wetfoot wrote:

CaptainPainInTheButt wrote:

Exactly. This is just like the way over hyped "global warming" catastrophies that never happen.

don't drag me into your climate change denialism

What are you going to do? Create another "climate change" panic thread?

piss poor parenting wrote:

My assumption is that the virus will spread in the US, people will get sick, a few thousand will die (the kind of people who are vulnerable to infectious disease anyway), and then it will be over.

This is a big part of the problem. Humans habitually tend to think in false dichotomies. They only see two possibilties: death/bad vs. survive/good. They completely discount all of the negative outcomes that are not death--personally I'd rather not spend a week being really sick even if I don't die. Plus even if the death rate was nominally 0.01%, if half the population all comes down with a significant illness during the same time period, that's still pretty bad (among other reasons, more people sick at the same time will increase the death rate over what it would otherwise be due to shortage of resources or facilities or workers to care for and treat so many sick people at once).

The other big problem with humans and infectious diseases is just how inconsiderate and irresponsible and selfish the average person is. The fact that people feel they have to go out in public while they are sick just blows my mind. People going to work when they are sick especially doesn't make any sense. Stay the f*** home. People feel no sense of responsibility for transmitting infections to the people around them. The WHO even tweeted an amazingly ridiculous statement about how we shouldn't use words like "transmitting" because they claim it implies intentional transmission. But people should take more responsibility for trying to not transmit infectious diseases to others. It makes way more sense for sick people to stay home and self-quarantine than to be advising all healthy people to avoid going out in public. Just bizarre.

Exactly.

I understand the narrative that "this is always happening". Yup, it is. It's a unique time in history where what happens in a live animal market on the other side of the planet has a real potential to affect you personally. That's the modern world in a nutshell, but we can't be stupid about the side effects. China in particular is always dealing with a crisis, so maybe it's foolish that we are increasingly putting our well being in their hands? You have to work hard to understand what is really going on beyond your world view. It's non linear, complex, and demonstrates a high degree of randomness. That's tough for people. Just look at the folks who turn this topic into something political, blame the media, try to predict what's going to happen, use the past to predict the future, etc....it's like they're desperately grasping for explanations.

We evolved to think locally not globally so thinking about giant risks is not in our wheelhouse.

41 dead in a single day in Italy and 150 in total in this country.

And it's just the start , despite Italy not being a third world country.

It's a current right-wing talking point. They watch fox news or read something on their favorite website and just parrot back.

ledi wrote:

much more lethal than the flu

Source?

The flu has killed ~18k this season. COVID-19 has killed ~3k.

ledi wrote:

So my real question is - what drives people to rabidly deny the POTENTIAL of this virus, and other similar problems?

Because we've heard it about H1N1, Swine Flu, COVID-03, etc.

Have you ever heard the story about a little boy who cries "WOLF!"?

What's happened to that India Vs Pakistan Nuclear War is definitely coming thread?

How DARE they tell me to wash my hands and stop touching my face? I demand an immediate STOP to all such news articles! Unless I personally am already infected, I don't want to read about it. /s

Precious Roy wrote:

The apolitical side is that there are always people out there who think that medicine and doctors are quacks. They tell you about their uncle who smoked a pack a day and lived to 100. Or about how they played with mercury when they were a kid and chewed on lead pencils.

Have you read some of the responses to these posts? I 100% believe that these dopes played with mercury and ate lead. ;)

wetfoot wrote:

why are people pushing back? Because we've heard similar terror stories for a dozen different viruses and they have yet to be serious threats. It's normal to roll your eyes a little when we're told for a 13th time that this is a big deal.

And we are c. three months into this and we are measuring US deaths in the single digits.

And it's been beaten in China already, which suggests it won't be long lasting elsewhere.

This is pretty wrong.

SARS and MERS never remotely reached this level of world-wide spread. China basically shut down cities to prevent spread -- you definitely haven't seen this level of response before.

A big difference with flu is that lots of people have immunity to season flu strains from past infections and vaccines -- not the case with COVID. Potentially a much larger infectable pool.

Harambe wrote:

wetfoot wrote:

why are people pushing back? Because we've heard similar terror stories for a dozen different viruses and they have yet to be serious threats. It's normal to roll your eyes a little when we're told for a 13th time that this is a big deal.

And we are c. three months into this and we are measuring US deaths in the single digits.

And it's been beaten in China already, which suggests it won't be long lasting elsewhere.

This is pretty wrong.

SARS and MERS never remotely reached this level of world-wide spread. China basically shut down cities to prevent spread -- you definitely haven't seen this level of response before.

A big difference with flu is that lots of people have immunity to season flu strains from past infections and vaccines -- not the case with COVID. Potentially a much larger infectable pool.

Chikungunya

Cholera

Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever

Ebola virus disease

Hendra virus infection

Influenza (pandemic, seasonal, zoonotic)

Lassa fever

Marburg virus disease

Meningitis

MERS-CoV

Monkeypox

Nipah virus infection

Novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV)

Plague

Rift Valley fever

SARS

Smallpox

Tularaemia

Yellow fever

Zika virus disease

Nice cut and paste.

Like it or not you live in a world where most of those diseases exist and b/c of how connected we are you are at risk when one gets hot regardless of where you live or what you do. Does this mean frantically worrying about what's next? No. But it does mean you need to pay attention.

It does mean when you hear "new virus", "long incubation period", "contagious before symptoms appear", and "droplet transmission" your ears should perk up. When a nation of 1 billion people stops on a dime, you need to raise a caution flag and adjust your behavior accordingly. Like it or not this is the world you're in. Where we are today is b/c of what we failed to do yesterday.

Excessive risk avoidance when it comes to contagious disease is absolutely critical at an individual level for the safety of all.

Luv2Run wrote:

Trolls?

Ignorance?

You have not been around here long if you find this unusual.

As we say in Wujan:

I'd like to lick your face.

totally agree that all the extra handwashing and the gummint actions are great. They will save lives no doubt.

I'm not saying CV is a hoax - I'm just saying that the fear is overcooked in many quarters. It's very real and it will kill a lot of people.

Although all this extrra handwashing will also save a lot of lives from non-transmission of the flu so there's that.