Dismissing health response as ‘hysteria’ is an insult
Countless thinkpieces on COVID-19 “mass hysteria” have emerged in the past several weeks, all decrying the media for whipping up an unjustifiable panic. Supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump’s denialist approach to the pandemic frequently take this stance, arguing that overhyping the disease is a political ploy to harm his re-election bid.
Trump friend and pardonee Conrad Black lamented last week that “the world (has) succumbed to a pandemic of hysteria, more than a virus,” calling the U.S. a “hero-nation of public policy” in its COVID-19 response. The “H” word appears in other places, too, with Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro condemning the recent lockdown of Sao Paulo as a hysterical overreaction to a “little flu.”
Trump’s hostility to the media is well known. But blaming the media ignores the fact that health experts have been sounding an urgent alarm on COVID-19 for months. By and large, the media have simply reported on the widespread concerns of front line health workers, infectious disease scientists and public health experts. Smearing the media is a common tactic in these days of fake news and alternative facts, but there is virtually no one in health care who doesn’t agree COVID-19 is a major global threat.
War metaphors have abounded, with many health workers feeling like we’re being called to the front lines of a new global battle. In New York City, accounts of intubating one’s own colleagues and saying goodbye to friends and mentors read like letters from the trenches of the Great War. But do we ever call soldiers’ stories from the front hysterical? Would we dismiss a military general’s concerns about war preparations as inciting mass hysteria? Health experts deserve the same level of respect accorded to military experts on the eve of war.
Let’s not forget what the underlying connotation of “hysteria” is. The word was once a medical diagnosis bestowed upon troublesome women. Its root is hysteria, Greek for uterus, because women behaving badly or expressing psychological distress were thought to be ill from a malfunctioning uterus. While the word “hysterical” no longer has medical meaning, it lingers as a colloquial insult lobbed primarily at women who are too loud or too passionate for other people’s comfort.
Is it a coincidence that this term is being used to downplay a health crisis? According to the WHO, women make up 67 per cent of the global health workforce.
Among the nurses who start IVs and the respiratory therapists who manage ventilators, female representation is overwhelming: 70 per cent to 90 per cent depending on where you are.
There is no doubt men are a vitally important part of health care. However, when women are predominately the front line workers facing the brunt of this pandemic, we must be critical of how accusations of hysteria are used to dismiss health experts.
Despite the frequency with which the term “mass hysteria” is thrown around, few commentators use it correctly.
What they mean to say is “social panic,” a population-wide flare of anxiety rooted in fear. Storming the grocery store to buy up all the toilet paper is a social panic. Mass hysteria is defined as a collective outbreak of psychogenic illness, which is when a person feels the symptoms of a disease but doesn’t show actual evidence of that disease.
An example is the phenomenon of koro, a collective panic over disappearing genitals. A famous “penis panic” occurred in Singapore in 1967, with hundreds of men seeking medical care for shrinking penises.
In Canada, the calm, confident voices of female public health officials like Dr. Theresa Tam, Dr. Bonnie Henry and Dr. Deena Hinshaw have been a reassuring balm of facts and evidence for a fearful public. There’s no hysteria, just a rational communication of concerns rooted in epidemiological science and case reports from health workers worldwide.
Continuing to smear health experts and journalists as inciters of hysteria not only ignores the measured, fact-based messaging that’s being delivered, it denigrates the labour and sacrifice of doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists, paramedics and many others. If it seems disrespectful to tar a soldier with this sexist insult, then the term is equally out of place in this pandemic and must be dropped.