Here's my long take on it: (short version, it's being hyped). Good to see warranted skepticism here.
First I can't resist the conspiracy question: why is this the first coronavirus to be listed as a pandemic by WHO? I wouldn't trust that outfit at all. Named Robert Mugabe as Goodwill Ambassador
Observe reasonable precautions for all communicable diseases. Respect the victims.
Voltaire: “Those Who Can Make You Believe Absurdities, Can Make You Commit Atrocities”
worldmeters
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ on 3-21-2020:
CV cases 304,030*; deaths 12,965; recovered 94,669’ U.S. 348; California 27.
I’ve probably had the flu a dozen times in my 70+ years. All bad, but most memorable was the 1968 Hong Kong flu
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_flu_pandemic which killed 1 million people world-wide in 6 months. In the U.S. approximately 33,800 people died of the Hong Kong flu.
https://www.sinobiological.com/research/virus/1968-influenza-pandemic-hong-kong-flu That toll is almost 100 times COVID-19’s current losses and more than all the deaths in the world caused by COVID-19. Nearly on par was the 1973 London flu which killed at least 1073 Americans, including 57 Californians the first week of 1973.
https://www.nytimes.com/1973/01/13/...emic-level-but-disease-control-office-is.html
Flu and virus epidemics that earn a name, usually based on origin, are simply an exceptionally virulent strain of viruses among a greater number of viruses that collectively, routinely kill more people than the named virus. Hence, the 2017-18 “ordinary” flu season killed 60,000 plus Americans with no single virus strain winning the prize of a name.
That national toll is many times the losses inflicted by COVID-19. The California toll was double the current COVID19 toll in just one week. Both those outbreaks hit hard and fast. You barely heard of it and you were down. The 2017-18 flu season cut down over 60,000 Americans. I wasn’t around but, “… something like …50,000 influenzapneumonia deaths in the United States occurred during the epidemic of the winter of 1928-1929.” (American Journal of Public Health, February 1930). The Granddaddy of all was the 1918 Spanish Flu: “When it was all over, the Spanish flu killed and estimated 675,000 Americans, among a staggering 20 to 50 million people worldwide.”
https://www.history.com/news/spanish-flu-pandemic-response-cities
How U.S. city officials responded to the Spanish flu played a critical role in how many residents lived—and died.
www.history.com
COVID 19 is showing the usual retreat in locations it was first established, China and South Korea:
“South Korea has emerged as a sign of hope and a model to emulate. The country of 50 million appears to have greatly slowed its epidemic; it reported only 74 new cases today, down from 909 at its peak on 29 February. And it has done so without locking down entire cities or taking some of the other authoritarian measures that China employed.”
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/202...-sharply-south-korea-whats-secret-its-success
Instead of enthusiastically hyping the COVID 19 body count, why are we not informed of these past outbreaks that were far worse? Where is the historical context? Where are the health care professionals and scientists who must know these truths? Where are the responsible journalists to inform the public of these vivid contrasts that don’t square with the hysterical story we’re being told? Where is the responsible leadership to put things in perspective and offer calm? Where are the skeptics, the inquirers, the challengers?
A people that can be so easily mislead and panicked by absurdities is concerning. “...once you get used to accepting what you are told without questioning it, no matter how absurd, you lose the ability to understand what is good or bad.”
If people are willing to shut everything down and shelter in place, what else might they do at their master’s bidding? The elderly, irrespective of their individual health, have already been stigmatized as vulnerable, or, along with Asians, possible vectors. Hence these "types" are to be avoided or shunned. Who will be next, and to what may they be subjected?
The land of the free and the home of the brave? More like the land of the panicked and afraid.
I don’t have to wonder what life must be like in an insane asylum anymore. All I have to do is go outside.
*There is likely a much larger, but unknown number of unreported, mildly ill, asymptomatic carriers. IF 80% of a population is not sick enough to report or be counted, that would quadruple the number of CV cases to approximately 1,200,000 taking the mortality rate down to about 0.1%. All the information I’ve shared is readily available on the internet.