I thought I'd do my first ever thread on #coronavirus, & specifically why staying calm (ie not losing your shit) was a good idea a week ago and is still the best idea today. It's a bit of a long-ish thread(10 tweets), but this whole thing is a bit complex...
1) Don't lose your shit because it's here now. This is a sneaky little fucker and so it was always going to come here. Given a third of people with it have no symptoms, and the majority only experience mild symptoms, containing it was always going to be almost impossible.
2) Don't get all stressed about media reporting of each new case. In all likelihood lots of Kiwis will get this thing. There's nothing surprising about that at all. Resist the tendency for reports of each new case to trigger more anxiety.
3) The problem is humans aren't great at assessing risk. Most people hear "coronavirus" and immediately think "people are dying". It's more accurate to think "the overwhelming majority of people who get it (including older people) recover. A third experience no symptoms at all."
4) The mortality rate charts doing the rounds can be alarming. Epidemiologists have said calculating accurate mortality rates is very complex. If a 1/3 of people experience no symptoms at all then a lot more people are infected than we know & mortality rates will likely go down.
5) In any case your individual risk depends on lots of complex factors (eg age, gender, health, access to healthcare etc). The vast majority of people who get it either get better or have no symptoms, even in the high risk groups. That's more factually accurate & more comforting.
6) Staying calm is always the best option. We all need to be smart now, not reactive. Panic-buying & hoarding is just plain dumb, and hurts those who need our collective help. Don't let fear make you dumb. Some people have legitimate reasons to stockpile, but most of us don't.
7) And not everyone can afford to stockpile even if they need to. Some are just scraping by week to week. Let's not make it harder still for those people when they go to the supermarket and can't buy the staples because those of us who don't need to have emptied the shelves.
8) There are lots of stories of racist coronavirus bullshit. If you see it, support the people on the receiving end. We said "they are us" not so long ago. Now that sentiment is truly being tested.
9) So if you don't have a legitimate reason to stockpile, don't. After that it's simple. Wash your hands with soap (the best thing most of us can do), stay home if you're sick, get on with life if you're not. Business as usual is important. Thats how all of us pay the bills.
10) Finally, constant earnest pronouncements of how serious it all is don't help. That makes us more stressed. Stress suppresses the immune system. Humour and calm bolster the immune system. So let's all lighten up a little. It's better for your health than doom and gloom.
