Wuhan and the Coronavirus--How Much Worrying Should We Be Doing?

Wuhan U of Technology. Photo by Benjamin Chris on Unsplash

The story that caught my eye was the one that said Wuhan is a city the size of London. That's a pretty good sized city. Why have we never heard of it? Well, because China has boatloads of large cities, and not just Shanghai or Beijing.

It's really hard to gauge the degree one should be worried about this new virus strain that's causing shockwaves around the globe. Are we looking at another bubonic plague that wiped out one-third or more of Europe?

Currently this particular virus has struck more than 2000 people, and killed 106. The hysteria it has engendered shows that we live in a very different world than 14th century Europe in the days of the Black Plague.

Back then we had no pharmaceutical industry. We hardly had any understanding of how disease is transmitted. There were no antibiotics, no vaccines for anything, and no comprehension of the role of cleanliness with regards to health care. And no Twitter to spread the panic immediately in all directions.

Acttually, Wuhan is a fairly important city in the grand scheme of things. This is partly why the story has made such an impact. You can read more about Wuhan here, and see a nice map showing its relationship to the rest of China's big cities.

A second reason this story has shaken people is that it is a virus transmitted from person to person. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) cholera still kills thousands of people each year, with some estimating the death toll to be 100,000 or more. That is a lot of heartbreak. Yet, for the most part the cause is bad water in specific areas remote to us, so we seldom if ever think about it, because it's not happening here.

Coronavirus Info

Artist rendition of the Wuhan coronavirus

According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC) coronaviruses are nothing new. They have been around for years in various strains. The CDC site states: "Human coronaviruses are common throughout the world. Seven different coronaviruses, that scientists know of, can infect people and make them sick. Some human coronaviruses were identified many years ago and some have been identified recently. Human coronaviruses commonly cause mild to moderate illness in people worldwide."

For more info about coronaviruses visit the Coronavirus page from the CDC.

What's interesting is how these different organizations present the information. The CDC and WHO strive to present facts for the purpose of keeping people informed. It's science and data. Because they know that whatever they say can trigger a panic, they try to be careful with their words.

On the other hand, the media loves hysteria. It sells papers, garners eyeballs. And so we find this inflated story now going viral: WHO Has Admitted an Error in Its Assessment of Wuhan Coronavirus Risk. If you read the story carefully, you'll see that WHO has not determined that the future of humanity is at risk.

At the end of the article we see the organization is always going to be on the hot-seat in these matters. If they react too fast, they get criticized for stirring up the hysteria. If they react too slow, well.. It's the old adage, "Damned if you do, damned if you don't."

Meantime, life goes on...