SAN FRANCISCO – Coronavirus is in the global spotlight, but secondary The character of this unfolding drama threatens to eclipse the sinister protagonist: fear.
Crack until it means to be human. Animals have a fight or flight response to real and present danger. We have this exasperating ability to go beyond and imagine what does not exist.
“Humans can often develop a strong, pathological fear of things that might not happen, to create realities that don’t exist,” says Elizabeth Phelps, professor of human neuroscience at Pershing Square at Harvard University. “So yes, of course you can do too much.”
Conditions seem conducive to the turbulence of this most basic emotion, with points of conspiracy that Hollywood would try to evoke.
In less than two months, the new coronavirus, given the less frightening clinical nickname of COVID-19, has grown from an ear-shaped virus infecting people in Wuhan, China, to an epidemic that has made more than 82,000 sick people, killed more than 2,000 and distributed in 47 countries on all continents.
By all dashboards, he’s a virus terrorist.
To add to the chaos, the financial markets are collapsing and the often contradictory responses to the spread of the virus. Italy, which handles hundreds of cases, has some closed northern cities. In Britain, which is testing the virus, health officials have warned that an overreaction would cause health and social costs.
President Donald Trump insisted that the risk to the Americans is “very low,” but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi replied that the administration has left the country vulnerable by “sacking funding” from agencies government health. California Governor Gavin Newsom tried to reassure his citizens on Thursday.
“Look, everyone in this country is rightly worried about this moment,” he said. “But I think they should know that we are having this moment with the kind of urgency that is needed.”
In the middle are emotionally flogged citizens, unsure of the level of alarm they should feel.
Tuesday, Mayor of San Francisco London Breed declared a state of emergency, but at the time there were no confirmed cases in the city. Further south, Orange County, which had a confirmed case, followed suit. The emergency declaration, leaders said, helps ensure a rapid response to a potential case.
Premature and alarmist? On Wednesday evening, the news revealed that the first case of COVID-19 not related to a trip to China had been discovered – in Northern California.
Some stores are already seeing a decrease in the supply of toilet paper and water, residents may be ready to self-quarantine for two weeks. A shortage of N95 masks leads Amazon is fighting third-party sellers accused of price increases. This comes despite experts who say that face masks offer little real protection.
A rush for supplies can trigger the brain amygdala, which psychologists call the headquarters of our factory for fear. A bucket of cold water can take the form of calm, reliable doses of information.
“Communication is most useful to us humans when it is explicit, so if you see the risk is low, explain how low it is,” said Baruch Fischhoff, professor at Carnegie Mellon University, former president from a university organization called Society for Judgment and Decision Making.
Fischhoff says that one way to keep fear in check is to restrict your information flow to just sources such as state medical agencies and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. On its website, the CDC recommends “daily preventive” actions such as washing hands and disinfecting surfaces.
“Look for outlets that treat you like an adult and tell you what the situation is and what the risks are,” he says. “You need information that helps you make decisions that are right for you.”
This could mean leaving social media for your COVID-19 updates, given its ongoing nature and the way online conversations tend to mimic this distorting phone game.
“In the past, the virus update was mentioned in the 6-hour news, but today it is tweets and Facebook posts 24/7,” said Phelps. “Fears can be learned. If you communicate with people who are scared online or see people online who are scared, this exposure is more likely to invoke fear in you. “
Phelps says that the clinical term for this spiral is called “dread risk” and that its power can turn a relatively mild situation into an overly fearful reaction.
For example, she says, in San Francisco it is much more likely to be killed by a car than COVID-19, “but cars are something we know, we are comfortable with, so they are not scary even if they’re a lot more deadly. “
The scapegoat is an age-old scourge
The terror of the unknown and even of the stranger plays out in the epidemic of the planet. The ugly human tendency to scapegoat, then as now, is emerging.
In the 1490s, French troops who stormed the city of Naples caught and spread syphilis. Depending on your side, the scourge was attributed to the French or the Italians.
When the flu crossed the European continent in 1889, it was imputed to the Russians; when the 1918 flu infected 500 million people, killing more than 10%, it was pinned on the Spanish.
COVID-19, from central China, caused similar xenophobic reactions.
Anecdotal reports around the world reveal that Asians of any nationality are rejected or worse. A photo touring online showed the back of a person in front of the Duomo in Milan; the person’s jacket had stickers reading in two languages, “NOT from China” and “I am Taiwanese”.
“In some ways, the fear in these situations becomes existential in that we are afraid of the other, we fear that they will bring us something bad, and this is unfortunate,” explains Guenter Risse, professor emeritus at the University of California at San Francisco. and the author of “Driven by Fear: Epidemics and Isolation in San Francisco’s House of Pestilence”, on how panic and xenophobia demonized Chinese immigrants here during epidemics in the 1920s.
Risse argues that the fear of deadly contagion is closely linked to the American psyche, as it has its roots in the invasion of the continent first by the Spanish, then the English, who both brought diseases that killed millions of Central American and North American Indians.
Because the COVID-19 epidemic can trigger these same primitive fears, it’s important to keep a perspective, experts say. This winter, the flu hospitalized approximately 280,000 Americans and killed 16,000; there are 60 confirmed cases of COVID-19 at the national level and no deaths.
The good and bad of coronavirus
At the risk of using a cliché, there is good and bad news which, according to experts, will reassure the fearful while arousing the deserved concern.
Let’s start with the bad news.
This is probably only the start of the global pandemics. Two reasons: the incessant encroachment of human beings into the animal worlds where viruses rarely have the chance to jump species; and the interconnected nature of the jet era.
In the case of COVID-19, one theory is that a bat with the virus gave it to a lizard-like creature called a pangolin, whom poachers kill by the thousands for their delicate scales. Once in the human host, the virus made its way to Wuhan and from there to the world.
“This is all linked to a situation that we have created,” explains Ilaria Capua, director of the One Health Center of Excellence at the University of Florida-Gainesville, which aims to promote healthy coexistence between the human, plant and animal worlds. “We are in the realm of the unknown. But you can only discover things by experiencing them. “
Capua made international headlines in 2006 when, working at an Italian institute, it sequenced an avian flu virus – which is essential for creating a vaccine – and urged research worldwide to share these data breakthroughs.
And therein lies the good news.
“What is exceptional about this epidemic is that the Chinese have shared the sequencing of the virus for the first time, and it is wonderful,” said Capua. “We now have the collective intelligence to anticipate a problem like a new virus, which is no more, because we only see a problem of a country.”
Capua says the lesson the world should take from COVID-19 is akin to a warning shot.
She does not anticipate that this virus will produce an “apocalyptic scenario”, given her death rate, but she says that her rapid global scan means that more needs to be done to prepare for the next COVID-19, in terms of everything, Research at Resources.
Above all, she says, stay calm.
“Panic is the biggest enemy you face in an emergency,” says Capua. “Panic can do far more damage than the virus.”
Follow the USA TODAY national correspondent Marco della Cava: @marcodellacava
