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Avoid the Coronavirus Hysteria
Many media outlets are publishing hysterical stores about the latest pandemic, the coronavirus.
I know because I just received an email for an emergency management professional who is an expert in preparing for, successfully dealing with, and recovery from disasters.
Someone wrote to her the following cockamamie "theory":
"I love your channel (her YouTube channel)! I think your subscribers might be interested in YOUR take on the Coronavirus outbreak. One thing I caught that I don't think most other people have: China's ONE Biological Weapons lab is IN WHUTAN! I wonder if something got out and this is just a bug ("sic" big) coverup?!"
Read that again.
No facts. No evidence. Pure speculations with a vague conspiracy thrown in.
This disaster professional sent me this nonsense with a question?
"WE just to this from one of our viewers...what can you tell us? Is there a biological weapons lab...what are the chances that something was released?"
Here was my reply.
"Like most, I know nothing about this outbreak except to ignore this rumor. It offers no facts or evidence.
Wuhan is a major rail hub in China. Unfortunately, that means that because the Communist Chinese, rather than providing facts upon which to develop countermeasures, did their usual reflexive secrecy about the Coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan.
We do know history. When the soldiers returned from WWI, many were out processed at Fort Dix, New Jersey. They got on trains that took them, and their "Spanish" flu, all over the country. This pattern may be what happened in China.
What is different today is that anyone who jumps on a plane can spread the flu rapidly to cities worldwide.
So, ignore the current hysteria, rumors, misinformation and conspiracy theories all so evident in the message this person sent you."
Resource: How to avoid flue virus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7WadcexVk8
Consider the same happens with every pandemic outbreak. Here is one from 1918:
"Some saw an enemy hand at work. Rumors spread that the Kaiser’s U-boats had released poison clouds in American ports and that German pharmaceutical company Bayer had tainted its aspirin tablets."
https://www.history.com/news/spanish-flu-deaths-october-1918
My grandmother, Margaret Sweeney Watson, told me stories about the impact of the Spanish Flu in Germantown, Philadelphia. I remember best her description of the wooden horse drawn wagons that were going by piled high with dead bodies. That is real. The speculation of this person above spreads disinformation and lies. Both are counterproductive.
I worked on an anthrax skunk works mitigation project in 2001/2. The same hysteria we saw then is occurring now...but worse.
Why? Look at the hysterical headlines on The Drudge Report. From there, hundreds of thousands repeat it on social media. And nothing spreads rumors faster than social media.
Beware social media hysteria.
Below are more posts about social media's ability to spread hysteria.
https://poetslife.blogspot.com/2015/02/social-media-as-force-multiplier.html
https://poetslife.blogspot.com/2015/10/rolling-up-isis-social-media-weapons.html
Tip: Pandemic on Netflix is actually a good source of factual information about the impact of a flue epidemic.
I know because I just received an email for an emergency management professional who is an expert in preparing for, successfully dealing with, and recovery from disasters.
Someone wrote to her the following cockamamie "theory":
"I love your channel (her YouTube channel)! I think your subscribers might be interested in YOUR take on the Coronavirus outbreak. One thing I caught that I don't think most other people have: China's ONE Biological Weapons lab is IN WHUTAN! I wonder if something got out and this is just a bug ("sic" big) coverup?!"
Read that again.
No facts. No evidence. Pure speculations with a vague conspiracy thrown in.
This disaster professional sent me this nonsense with a question?
"WE just to this from one of our viewers...what can you tell us? Is there a biological weapons lab...what are the chances that something was released?"
Here was my reply.
"Like most, I know nothing about this outbreak except to ignore this rumor. It offers no facts or evidence.
Wuhan is a major rail hub in China. Unfortunately, that means that because the Communist Chinese, rather than providing facts upon which to develop countermeasures, did their usual reflexive secrecy about the Coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan.
We do know history. When the soldiers returned from WWI, many were out processed at Fort Dix, New Jersey. They got on trains that took them, and their "Spanish" flu, all over the country. This pattern may be what happened in China.
What is different today is that anyone who jumps on a plane can spread the flu rapidly to cities worldwide.
So, ignore the current hysteria, rumors, misinformation and conspiracy theories all so evident in the message this person sent you."
Resource: How to avoid flue virus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7WadcexVk8
Consider the same happens with every pandemic outbreak. Here is one from 1918:
"Some saw an enemy hand at work. Rumors spread that the Kaiser’s U-boats had released poison clouds in American ports and that German pharmaceutical company Bayer had tainted its aspirin tablets."
https://www.history.com/news/spanish-flu-deaths-october-1918
My grandmother, Margaret Sweeney Watson, told me stories about the impact of the Spanish Flu in Germantown, Philadelphia. I remember best her description of the wooden horse drawn wagons that were going by piled high with dead bodies. That is real. The speculation of this person above spreads disinformation and lies. Both are counterproductive.
I worked on an anthrax skunk works mitigation project in 2001/2. The same hysteria we saw then is occurring now...but worse.
Why? Look at the hysterical headlines on The Drudge Report. From there, hundreds of thousands repeat it on social media. And nothing spreads rumors faster than social media.
Beware social media hysteria.
Below are more posts about social media's ability to spread hysteria.
https://poetslife.blogspot.com/2015/02/social-media-as-force-multiplier.html
https://poetslife.blogspot.com/2015/10/rolling-up-isis-social-media-weapons.html
Tip: Pandemic on Netflix is actually a good source of factual information about the impact of a flue epidemic.
