Corona Virus Panic

I won’t say this is not a serious issue. But the panic over it seems to me to be disproportionate to the danger.

And this business of stocking up for a siege is inconsiderate of the needs of others.

I was at our local Costco last week on Friday. I go out every Friday and do the grocery shopping and errand running. I do it early in the morning because it is less busy then.

Boy was I surprised. The parking lot was crammed. The store was full of people loading up on bottled water, toilet paper, paper towels. Several people had those tubs of survival foods on their flat-bed carts. Basically it was insane.

I was nonplussed and asked my cashier what the heck was going on. He said it was because of the corona virus.

When I was in the eighth grade, that was the school year 1965-66, there was a terrible flu going around. Both my parents got it and so did my sister. I’d had a terrible flu when I was around seven years old (1959 or so) and had nearly died of it. The flu of ’65-66 was apparently similar enough to that one that I did not get the current flu.

Thing is, they didn’t close the schools. They didn’t cancel high school football games. They didn’t tell people to stay home. No one went around wearing surgical masks.

Even though something like a third of the people in our local community were sick, life went on. Grocery stores got their deliveries. There was plenty of aspirin and cough medicine on the shelves. People didn’t panic.

Yes, a lot of people died that year. It was a serious flu and when it was all over, some of my classmates never returned. But the economy didn’t fall apart.

As a society, we’ve been dealing with the flu in all its many forms for a long time. It just seems to me that if we handle this one as we would one of the more contagious variations, that we will be just fine. The world will not fall apart.

I’m not saying we should all ignore the corona virus. But this panic over it seems totally misplaced to me.

For the most part, life’s a crap shoot. I could die getting into the bathtub. I’m acutely aware that death waits around every corner every minute of every day. But I refuse to live in fear. And that’s really what this is all about.

So don’t be afraid. Don’t panic. Remain calm. Be kind. Do the best you can. That’s all you can do.