The pandemic panic

“The media’s the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that’s power. Because they control the minds of the masses.”

Malcolm X

For this week, we will be talking about journalism and specifically how science journalism can affect the public. The hot topic right now is 2019-nCoV, or the novel coronavirus. It’s hard not to know what this is as there’s been a bit of hysteria with this outbreak as it’s been headlining every news outlet at the moment.

It is so vital to communicate with the public, especially on matters about public health and disease outbreaks. Not wanting to repeat history, the Chinese government was able to get global public health into action quickly to contain the virus as much as possible. This is so important to prevent the spread of the virus as the more a virus spreads, the more it can mutate.

 However, what the general public don’t realize is that influenza is much more detrimental. In both influenza and 2019-nCoV they usually causes severe complications with patients with comorbidities (those who had a disease prior to infection) or those who are immunocompromised due to age or pregnancy.

Most of the burden from outbreaks such as this will most likely be economical because screening people at airports is expensive and labs and other health facilities will also really feel the pressures. But because there has been such a quick and grand response it means it gives the virus less opportunities to spread and mutate, which is a really good thing.  

Science journalism has a responsibility of providing accurate information as the general public may not have a background in the topic and may not understand how dire something is or not. It seems that many people on Twitter or YouTube have exploited this event to spread misinformation and conspiracy theories. I have seen things as ridiculous as this novel coronavirus being created by Bill Gates on purpose. I honestly can’t even delve into the conspiracy theories much because I can barely understand them myself, they are that absurd. This theory stemmed from a circulating image from Pirbright Institute of a patent for a vaccine for a non-human coronavirus.

As someone in the science field, it is incredibly disheartening to see friends and family on social networks spreading misinformation, which only acts to scaremonger others into fearing and mistrusting science more than they already do. So while I am excited to see such a quick response from public health to contain an outbreak, events like this often can create unnecessary fear and anxiety for the general public.

I understand why there is a panic right now and I think it’s important to be cautious with a new virus, especially because new viruses can have the potential to infect and kill more people than viruses that circulate more often. However, with all that said. Should you panic? No, at this point in time it doesn’t really make sense to be anxious for something that ‘might’ happen. Should we be cautious, aware, educated and practice good hygiene. Yes, of course, always. 

Wash your hands, you filthy animals.