1 INTRODUCTION
       2 SCIENCE
       3 CORONA VIRUS
           3.1 SCALE
           3.2 THREAT
       4 WHAT SHOULD SCARE US

       1 INTRODUCTION

   So we're all in a panic about the pandemic of Corona virus, also known as COVID-19. They're canceling and closing everything. One political wag says, “The difference between panic and pandemic is DEM, for the Democratic Party.” We're scared and we should be scared. I'd just like to make sure we're scared of the right things.

       2 SCIENCE

   What if science is right and the fear-mongers are wrong? Science tells us there is a new bug maybe twice every fifteen years, swine flu, SARS, Asian flu, West Nile, bird flu, et cetera that causes a wave of cases and kills some people until the combination of our immune systems and medical technology get it under control. The same “sober math” that applies to COVID-19 applied to these. The ordinary flu that most of us get shots for every year mutates and comes back a little bit different each year and kills of us more than any of these other diseases. (Any of these could turn out badly, but the last time that happened was 1918 and I like to think our medical technology is better now than then.) So far, science tells us Corona virus is another in a long legacy of new diseases, less scary than swine flu or SARS and a lot less scary than the ordinary flu. We should respect them all and take precautions in personal hygiene and interpersonal contact for all of them. That's what the numbers from history up to the present are telling us.

   Science also tells us there are horrible diseases to fear. Ebola, Marburg, hemorrhagic fever, hanta, and lassa fever are all terrifying virus that make AIDS seem like the sniffles. I like to travel, I get my shots and take my risks, but you don't see me taking a scenic drive on the Kisangani-Bukavu road in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

       3 CORONA VIRUS

   They tell me we have a new virus. It's a respiratory illness somewhat worse than ordinary flu. If you're young and you get it, then you'll be sick with a nasty cough and a high fever. If you're older and have pulmonary problems (like I do), then you'll be miserably sick and you have a positive probability of dying.

   Depending on whose numbers you want to believe, maybe thirty have died stateside from three thousand cases that were severe enough to be reported. Worldwide, the numbers are higher, maybe 7000 deaths out of 200 thousand cases as I write this. So one in ten million stateside have died and one in a million worldwide.

           3.1 SCALE

   Before we reject concern over Corona based on the small numbers, I'll point out that this is a contagious disease, so one case can become two, then four, then eight, and in a few weeks 8589934592 people will get the disease. Mitigating that exponential growth is that there aren't that many people, many people won't get infected, and many exposed people will neither get sick nor infect others.

   It's not silly to think that today's 3000 cases in the United States could expand to 300 thousand and thirty deaths could expand to 3000. Infectious disease is no joke as 30 million get the flu each year and 30 thousand die of that.

   About ten million people die of cancer each year, 600 thousand here in the United States. On a more-similar scale, about 50 thousand die in automobile accidents in the U.S.A. and half of those are directly due to a drunk driver. Of course, none of these visits from the grim reaper is contagious as an infectious disease.

   The horrible, scary influenza of 1918 killed three percent of the world population. Corona does not spread much more than flu, but in its current state, with no vaccine available, it kills about ten times as often for those infected.

           3.2 THREAT

   So maybe 300 thousand will get this Corona virus, maybe there won't be a vaccine for a while, and one percent of those won't survive the experience, most old, breathing-addled people like myself. That's three thousand deaths, enough to make me worry a bit. Of course, Corona is being compared to the 1918 flu that killed a great deal more.

   So we're canceling anything that gets people together like concerts and events, we're scaring people into staying home, and maybe we're getting some of them actually to wash their hands.

   Nobody is asking the question of why similar measures weren't taken for SARS, West Nile, or swine flu. The swine flu killed 18 thousand worldwide and 12 thousand here in the U.S.A. Of course, it wasn't an election year where the news media weren't trying terribly hard to unseat the current government and to replace it with a much larger government with a lot more control over us.

       4 WHAT SHOULD SCARE US

   Now we get to what I'm really afraid of. Under the worst-case scenario I have a one-percent chance of getting a disease that has a one-percent change of killing me. Would I give up half a year of concerts and events to prevent that? I want to enjoy my remaining years and a one-in-ten-thousand chance of dying is a small price to pay for enjoying the time I have left.

   When I posted my opinions about the overreacting on Facebook, I got responses like “yes-yes, we're overreacting” from right-wing conservatives and responses saying the threat was real and the response appropriate from my left-wing friends. The really left wing friends said we weren't overreacting at all, I assume including the mad buying of toilet paper. That the people who believe in big government want more reaction to this threat and people who believe in less government want less reaction to the same perception of threat suggests the reaction is not to Corona virus at all.

   Corona is scary. So far it's not as scary as SARS or swine flu, but it could become that scary. It's a long way short of plain, ordinary flu in the scary department, but even that could change. Still, yes, I'm a little-bit afraid of Corona virus. We all saw movies like “The Last Man on Earth,” “The Omega Man,” “Legend,” “Night of the Living Dead,” “Outbreak,” “Contagion,” and “28 Days Later.” These movies are terrifying visions of what infectious disease could do.

   What terrifies me is the panic, the reaction to this relatively-minor threat. I'm terrified when the population at large response to fear-mongering from our news and entertainment media. 1939 October 30 I was a lot more afraid of what people were doing here on earth than anything coming from Mars.

   Contagious disease is more threatening that Martians, but it's not in a league with the threat of mass panic and despotism. The political faction in the United States today that supported the most controlling and terrible regimes in recent history wants us to be afraid of Corona virus and that concerns me greatly.

   Let's put this into perspective. 100 million people have died in the last 100 years at the hands of their own governments. That's more than one percent of the total mortality of the past century. After an unexpected, crushing defeat in the 2016 elections, they're desperately looking for a way to increase the size, scope, and power of government, to regain their control over the rest of us and Corona virus seems to be their ticket. This is what scares me.

   We saw what today's proposed programs did historically in Russia, Germany, Cuba, China, and Venezuela. We felt the crushing losses here in the United States from the New Deal and the Great Society government expansions as well as the Carter and Obama government growth. If they position Corona virus as a path to power, then I know what I'm more afraid of.

   So liberals feel more government intervention and finding ways of keeping people from assembling is appropriate response to a minor threat in medical history. We get threats all the time and the actual, regular, ordinary flu is far scarier with far more carnage to be expected. Conservatives look at the holocausts that have accompanied these losses of liberty and figure a medical risk is secondary. How will we feel if we give up our liberties and have a Stalin-sized or Hitler-sized or Mao-sized or even Castro-sized killing spree and then the medical researchers find a vaccine for Corona a couple of months from now?

   Should we respond to the threat of Corona virus? My response is, “Of course we should respond, just as we should respond to the greater threat of flu, just as should have responded to swine flu and SARS. Wash hands, don't shake hands or French Kiss with strangers, stay home when you're sick, and don't panic. The appropriate level of fear-mongering for Corona virus is one third what we had for swine flu and one-tenth what we have for ordinary flu. It's not Ebola or Marburg or Hanta. Let's respond sensibly without tyranny.”

   While I'm more afraid of Corona than Martians, and I'm more afraid of flu than either of those, I'm far more afraid of the political consequences of panic.

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