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I've had to stop watching the news. The wild and pointless speculation just drives me nuts, and the media seem intent on whipping up their favourite fear, panic and hysteria. I watched an good interview last night with a guy that specialises in human assessment of risk and fear, and he was much more sensible. He wasn't for one second playing down the potential seriousness of the situation, but was pointing out how irrational human responses can be in an attempt to give them some sense of control. Bulk buying of toilet paper when there is no shortage of the stuff is a great example. According to a recent article New England Journal of Medicine, the overall mortality rate may be less than 1% once the final number of infected people is established. Evidence for this comes in part from China where once the the Wuhan outbreak had been identified, the other areas of that had time to prepare to care for patients are seeing a mortality rate of 0.7% - still substantially more than the 0.1% of the flu, but not the figures originally feared. The recent SARS virus had a mortality rate of around 10% and Covid-19 is far less deadly than that, and far less deadly than MERS or Ebola. I'm not for one second suggesting we don't need to take steps to address the situation and keep people as safe and healthy as possible, and it's better that governments prepare for the worst while hoping for the best. I just find the 24x7 "WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!!" coverage as exhausting as it is unhelpful and suspect it will lead to a lot of unnecessary stress. The various regional and national health agency websites are providing information in a much more balanced and helpful way.

I genuinely- in a completely un-snidey way- love Steelboy's willingness to come out to bat for the most controversial position in every single argument on this website