Simply for perspective
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that swine flu infected nearly 61 million people in the United States and caused 18,469 deaths.
Worldwide, up to 575,400 people died from pandemic swine flu.
Call me skeptical of the overreaction to this virus. Especially when the rate of death is falling....... CDC first thought that rate would be 3-5% and is now hovering around 1%.
I bet when this is all said and done, people who pushed panic....
Of course, they can always suggest they were just trying to save us all. Why didn't the same reaction happen in 09? I think that's a fair question.
You're probably more right than wrong that there is more worrying than is justified, but as I've said a couple of times now, there are an abnormally high number of people in the US with pre-existing conditions that complicate Coronavirus recovery (diabetes, obesity, heart conditions, asthma, old age, immune issues). Coronavirus is harder to survive for this group than most airborne pathogens (bacterial pneumonia is an exception, but it's also treatable with anti-biotics). Survival for them often requires hospitalization. The more simultaneous hospitalizations, the more the medical facilities get stressed beyond what they're designed for, which makes it difficult for people who need non-Covid essential care to be able to get it in a timely manner. Or they contract it via proximity to infected when they otherwise wouldn't.
To prevent this scenario, the best course of action is probably overreaction (in terms of limiting gatherings and whatnot), because at least overreaction will mitigate the spread, thus mitigating the secondary effects on the medical system. Reduce overall exposure and you also reduce exposure of persons with COPD or who are on chemotherapy. You reduce the potential of delays in their standard, essential treatment. Now, maybe those people have poor life expectancy to begin with, but that's no reason to just write them off as not your problem.
This isn't the Spanish flu and it isn't the Black Death. This toilet paper hoarding thing is so stupid it would be hilarious if it wasn't so inconvenient.
But that doesn't mean each of us shouldn't do our part (within reason) to try to limit the numbers of people who are ultimately exposed to the virus by limiting our own exposure (and thereby our risk of further spreading it).
Finally, you're underestimating the litigiousness of our society. The NBA or Walt Disney World don't actually care about public health. What they
do care about are the class action lawsuits that would eventually be generated as a result of any potential outbreak at their events. Whatever the public health necessity of these closings is, I don't think they are an over-reaction from a
business/risk standpoint. If I was the EVP of (whatever) at Disney, I'd have closed the resorts a week ago.
4 people died of Hepatitis from one bad batch of lettuce bought by ChiChis and it ruined them financially. One day, they were the largest Mexican restaurant chain in the world and seven months after the lawsuits started they were a small chain, mostly operating in the Persian Gulf. The lesson there is that a business should never take chances with stuff like this.
