Lotterylogicandscaremongering are only fanning flames of panic
AM I going to win the Lotto? No. Do I believe I will win the Lotto: hell yeah! Just because you believe something doesn’t make it true and the same goes for the Novel coronavirus.
On Sunday, as if we needed it, ‘lottery logic’ was applied to the public health hysteria. A national newspaper printed that
1.9m people could contract the coronavirus. Boom! Suddenly it’s hitting home.
Let’s all of us take a breath right in the here and now. The world has once again gone mad and being still and keeping one’s head is probably a good idea.
The toilet roll, pasta frenzy at supermarkets once again shows how easily (and strangely) people react when they are threatened. As I type people are cancelling holidays, stocking up on hand sanitizer and disinfectant sprays. It’s like the worst Christmas ever as people fill shopping trolleys and collectively step back into self isolation mode in an attempt to avoid Covid-19.
As with everything it is only when something impacts on us that we sit up and take notice and this current health scare is another example of how subjectively we all face into anything which can make us sick. I wonder if people in Scandinavia who are said to be very comfortable with life’s vicissitudes, are reacting in the way many Irish people are.
As a parent who feels guilty even about not having enough treats in the treat press, this has been particularly stressful. My default laid back attitude has been usurped Ghost-like by some freaked out phantom who is telling me not to let the children be around people. Suddenly supermarkets, cinemas, kid’s play centres, restaurants are all potential no-go zones. Madness, I know, but this is a train of thought that is being expounded day in, day out.
A friend of mine was at a match at the weekend and for the first time saw queues of men at the toilet sinks.
The usual free flowing man traffic in and out of the toilet was replaced by anxious men queuing to wash their hands. Begs the question what was happening before the coronavirus came along!
It is hard to strike a balance when confronted with spiralling figures about mortality and sickness.
Turn on the radio and it’s all apocalyptic. The telly the same. Most of us will probably be among the 80 percent bracket of people who MAY get mild flu-like symptoms. There is a chance we’ll be among the less fortunate 18 per cent to get a bad illness and almost all of us are outside the 2 per cent bracket who – if infected – will die.
The difficulty – and it is an existential one for many in the 80 per cent category – is making sense of how we feel about it all. Having let out sighs of relief when realising we’re safe, the guilt kicks in, because by virtue of our humanity if we contract Covid-19 we could pass it on to an old person or someone with a pre-existing condition who could die as a result.
Sky is falling logic is not going to help anyone, nor is alarmist lottery logic.
The HSE ‘cannot dispute’ that up to 1.9 million people in Ireland may be infected by the coronavirus. So the media line was spun at the weekend, but reading between the lines almost everyone would.
Patience and vigilance is required, and common sense too.