Coronavirus: Don’t delude yourself about the dangers – Helen Martin

Being over-optimistic about the Covid-19 coronavirus outbreak is a big mistake, writes Helen Martin.

A man wears a face mask in St Peter's Square at the Vatican (Picture: AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

OPTIMISTS are admirable people. Always looking on the bright side of life, and not being driven to depression by imagining the worst that could happen. Positivity is seen as an asset, while negativity is seen as pessimistic.

Coronavirus is different. Despite government and NHS plans sweeping forward in an attempt to save lives, “optimists”, although realising deaths are on the cards, are still believing the danger is exaggerated.

Several posts on social media are encouraging followers to carry on with holidays abroad, insisting it is on a par with “ordinary” flu, some rather cruelly claiming it is “only” going to kill elderly folk, or those with immune deficiency.

Others are quoting the number of those who die annually from cancer, diabetes, heart failure etc and considering these are more important. They don’t seem to understand that coronavirus is a new, highly contagious, potential pandemic and not like the physical ailments and diseases that the health service usually deals with.

A common modern mistake is for people with a temperature, a sore throat and a nasty cold to define that as flu. It’s not. It’s a cold or a passing virus. Others know flu is influenza, which especially for the elderly and others, leads to pneumonia and other life-threatening conditions. Hence everyone over 65 or anyone who may become pregnant is urged to have flu vaccines to prevent expected strains of each year.

But coronavirus is especially dangerous and likely to affect those aged 30-40 and over. Although many can cope and survive, the rapid global contagion is so far unstoppable, especially as there is no vaccine yet.

There has been little mention of 1918’s Spanish flu. And that is something I certainly know about.

It spread around the world killing over 50 million people, one of whom was my grandmother – obviously a lady I never knew.

She was originally from Pennsylvania but at the time was living in Boston, Massachusetts, and had just given birth to my father. That was the most-deadly global pandemic in history, far worse than swine flu (in 2009 which killed almost 600,000) or Hong Kong flu (1968-9 which killed one million). The other day I was having a routine blood test and the younger, but experienced, nurse and I were talking about coronavirus. She had never heard of 1918’s horror.

Very disturbing was watching Donald Trump on TV last week when he asked if the existing flu vaccine would stop corona. The experts he was talking to simply mumbled: “No”. They probably weren’t expecting such an uninformed, naive question from the US President. He topped that by saying it was okay for those who had it to go to work as usual!

We are now facing the risk of schools being closed, Olympics being cancelled or postponed, and many businesses or gatherings including the UK Parliament considering if they can work, debate and communicate from home. Even church Mass and gatherings in Italy are shutting down.

I’m nearly 67, undergoing post-cancer treatment and just recovered from extreme sinusitis. Logically I would certainly avoid going to a cinema, flying anywhere, or spending hours inside somewhere with shared and recirculated ventilation.

Maybe all this will be nowhere as bad as 1918, deaths will be limited and within six months vaccines will be discovered and it will have passed.

But the best way to achieve that is for everyone to be rather pessimistic, careful, cautious and diligent when it comes to following instructions. With an unexpected, highly contagious, non-vaccine, and potentially deadly global pandemic, optimism and cynicism, risk-taking and dismissing “unattractive” advice is not a “positive” attitude.