Why I Fear the Coronavirus | National Review
Could President Trump be right that the Wuhan virus is less concerning that the flu, because it is less prevalent? Maybe. But I doubt it. When there is not time for long-term longitudinal studies, broad prejudice is a good enough substitute. One might dismiss the extraordinary actions of China, South Korea, and Japan as actions taken by germaphobic, authoritarian East Asian cultures. But why would China s government, so often known for treating life cheaply, shut down its industrial heartlands for a bad flu season? One could dismiss the quarantine of Lombardy as an overreaction by dramatic Italians, though that doesn t quite work: Lombardy is more like an Italian-speaking half-Teutonic Switzerland. But Israel has to be level-headed every day to survive, and it is temporarily shutting down entry into the country.
This will not come as news to attentive RC readers. You should have been prepared for days by now. I no longer have to mansplain myself to my wife and kids. I take it they now believe me when I say we are in for a bit of a rough ride. I just hope not too rough. But I should think at least school closures and probably some of the inconsistently organized and arbitrarily enforced quarantines like what we have when there’s a wildfire. You should at least have food and water for 2 weeks ready to hand. Four weeks is not too much.
I’m not sure what PDT is doing. If he really is minimizing the Wuhan Flu or whatever we’re supposed to call it, that’s a big mistake. For one thing, I don’t see how it can avoid being the big issue in the Presidential campaign. I foresee effective campaign ads featuring grandfather dying because he can’t get a ventilator at the crowded emergency room. Worst of all, there will some truth to these hypothetical ads unless he changes course, like, yesterday.
It seems to me what is likely to happen is that the virus will (continue to) spread quickly throughout the country, people, especially old and already sick people will get sick or sicker, ERs and hospitals generally will get overwhelmed, and comparatively lots of people will die. How many depends on what the case fatality rate of this disease is. We don’t know but we’ll find out.
So as the saying goes, don’t get panicked; get ready. Ok, I made up that saying. It’s never a good idea to panic but it’s definitely a good idea to be prepared. You can still find food and water probably if you look around. Hopefully, water will not be necessary, but you really don’t want to be without water.