Hysteria, Covid’s most dangerous symptom, hits our common sense
The symptoms of coronavirus should by now be well-known: a high temperature, a new, continuous cough and – in a more recent official addition – problems with your sense of taste or smell.
But another symptom has reared its head – affecting those who haven’t even been infected. Some bill it as mere public anxiety, but others see the levels of fear as tantamount to full-blown hysteria.
The rush in March among shoppers to stock up on essential goods, with some around the world even coming to blows over items as basic as lavatory paper, showed how pervasive the panic had become. Four months on,
Ipsos MORI found after surveying opinion in 27 countries that the British were more likely to be concerned about Covid-19 (59 per cent) than the global average (43 per cent).
Such findings prompted Tory MPs to wonder whether the Government’s “stay home” messages were too effective. Research commissioned in July by Kekst CNC showed how far public perceptions about the pandemic had been skewed. For example, the average Briton estimated that the disease had wiped out as much as 7 per cent of the UK, equating to around 4.6million people, rather than its actual rate in the tens of thousands. They estimate that just over 22 per cent of the population had had Covid-19, which at just over 14.6million people would be well over the current confirmed tally of 323,000.
“When people estimate risk, they overestimate it massively,” says King’s College London’s Prof Neil Greenberg, who works at the Health Protection
‘We are very poor as a public at estimating what risk really means’
‘Anyone who isn’t feeling anxiety is a bit strange, because this is an anxietyproducing event’
Research Unit for Emergency Preparedness and Response. “We are very poor as a public at estimating what risk really means.”
That does not mean the threat can be summarily dismissed, but experts are keen for a sense of proportion.
Prof Udi Qimron, the incoming head of clinical microbiology and immunology at Tel Aviv University, recently highlighted that 99.9 per cent of the world’s population has so far survived the virus, warning: “In a world where decision-makers, their advisers and the media were able to admit their mistake and the initial panic that gripped them, we would have long since returned to routine. The ongoing destruction due to the inability to admit this mistake, despite the epidemic’s small mortality numbers, is outrageous. History will judge the hysteria.”
Despite the much-debated trade-off between the economy and lives lost, figures suggest the world has a lot to learn from Scandinavian nations like Sweden. The Swedes’ strategy of keeping schools open and avoiding any lockdown has paved the way for considerable economic benefit, with their economy only shrinking in the second quarter by 8.2 per cent – more than twice as small a fall as suffered in Britain (20.9 per cent). Sweden’s death toll – according to Johns Hopkins University – has been proportionally less than the British (at 56.98 per 100,000 people compared with 62.98).
Sweden’s neighbours like Denmark and Finland suffered even smaller economic drops (7.40 and 3.2 per cent
respectively) and have notably smaller death rates. Both pursued shorter lockdowns than the UK.
The scars left by Covid-19 are visible on the popular psyche, as Kekst found in its survey of international public opinion that the UK remains the most concerned about a second wave – with 76 per cent expecting one in the next year or so. By contrast, Sweden is the only country recorded as increasingly less worried about a resurgence.
The Swedes have continued to defy international trends, such as the shift in countries like the UK and France to insist on the public wearing face masks. Anders Tegnell, the Swedish chief epidemiologist, told a newspaper this week that evidence of their effectiveness was “astonishing weak”.
Why has Covid-19 left the British so unwilling to follow their stereotypical stoic attitude? Prof Greenberg strikes a sympathetic tone: “Anyone who isn’t feeling anxiety at the moment is a bit strange, because this is an anxietyproducing event.” He argues the “best way to combat anxiety is to understand the enemy” and take greater stock in “hard factual information” rather than “speculation”.
Perhaps it is worth reflecting on how past outbreaks proved to be much more anticlimactic than the feverish speculation they first attracted.
In 2005, the World Health Organisation pulled no punches in decrying “the greatest single health challenge to mankind”. The disease was H5N1 – better known as “bird flu”.
It was feared this avian influenza could go on to kill 150million people.
Sir Liam Donaldson, then the UK’s chief medical officer, warned that it could kill around 50,000 people. A report by a House of Lords select committee warned of 75,000 British deaths in an “inevitable” flu pandemic.
In the end, bird flu failed to trouble anyone in the UK besides poultry, leading Boris Johnson, then a columnist for The Telegraph to quip on Oct 30 2005 that “the only victims are the poor Thai fighting-cock enthusiasts who have engaged in direct osculation with their birds in an effort to revive them for the fight”.
A few years later, a new “panpanic” burgeoned in the H1N1 virus. “Swine flu” was estimated to be capable of killing 50,000 people. A “reasonable worst-case scenario” mooted by the government, based on advice from Prof Neil Ferguson, of Imperial College, was that it would kill up to 65,000 Britons. This was not the last time Mr Ferguson would be credited with dramatic predictions, given his current notoriety after persuading ministers to pursue a lockdown with his estimate that Covid could otherwise result in 250,000 deaths.
The virus turned out to be barely a tenth as virulent as seasonal flu, causing no more than 457 UK deaths.
As winter draws near, speculation about whether strict measures like local lockdowns may be necessary will no doubt run rife. In response, many Britons will undoubtedly be tempted to focus on keeping calm and follow what the Prime Minister hails as “good British common sense” – with a bit of Swedish