Probably one of the most vexing things an obvious crisis like this coronavirus pandemic (well, obvious to you and us, at any rate) is all the people who refuse to face it.
They’ll exploit every possible psychological defense in their arsenal to resist discussing or even hearing about the crisis. They will ignore you. They will belittle you. They will try to subtly – or overtly – shame you for attempting to raise the issue with them.
“Oh, there you go again! You’re such a worry wart!”
The sad part is that their response has absolutely nothing to do with the data, or the easily calculable risks vs the potential losses.
And ironically, these same people already have socially acceptable risk/loss measures in place. We call them “auto insurance” and “life insurance” and “fire insurance.”
Society has already absorbed the prudent rationale for these loss-prevention measures into its framework, so people don’t even question them. They’re already “self-evident”, and everybody knows what they are and why they’re necessary.
But a pandemic is so rare an event that our social framework isn’t conditioned to it yet. So the vast majority of people are not trained on how to interpret the data or process the implications. And because of this, they can’t prepare.
Under Stress, Emotion Trumps Logic
I’ve run into fully-trained virologists who have spent their entire professional lives in this realm who are tripping over the implications of covid-19 and stumbling to completely illogical conclusions. As an example, here’s a note relayed to me by Cornell chemist (and annual Year In Review author) Dave Collum from “a virologist of considerable repute:”
“Thanks for writing. COVID-19 is a novel coronavirus that may have a bat species as a natural host. We have insufficient evidence about how it was first transmitted to humans. The accidental release theory appears highly unlikely. The threat from emerging viruses is a mismatch between the virus and the immune response. I don’t know how the epidemic will turn out per se. In brief, the virus can be deadly, but it will not be devastating. I think preventative quarantines of individuals without symptoms are ineffective; we should isolate as best as possible infected patients.”
What’s wrong with this response? Everything.
It’s illogical and not grounded in the latest scientific data on the virus.
by steve-in-georgia 
