Corona-thoughts

In 1981 Dean Koontz published his novel The Eyes of Darkness, which centred on a man-made virus originating in Wuhan province, China, which causes a global biological pandemic. Sound familiar? I’ll leave the rest to the historians and conspiracy theorists who survive this saga.

At the time of writing, around 4000 deaths have been caused by the virus. On the 10^th of February, 108 in China died in that single 24-hour period. What went unreported, however, was the 26,000 who died from cancer during that same day, the 24,000 who died from heart disease, the 3000 who ended their own lives, the 1300 who were killed by fellow humans and 137 despatched by dangerous snakes. I don’t make light of the virus’ potential to spread and cause harm, but the media panic seems a little selective in light of the above figures. Oh, and don’t let me forget the 25,000 who die of starvation every day. But the Coronavirus is scarier and more interesting to the media because it could kill us; starvation only affects the very poor.

Image by Alexandra_Koch from Pixabay