Continuation — Part Four of “Coronavirus: Facts We Need to Know and What We Can Do”

The effect of coronavirus on the world economy is another issue, one that acquires an additional impact in Iran. For example, the value of the Australian currency, solely because of the effect of coronavirus on China and trade between the two countries, had fallen to what the source describes as its lowest level since 1930. With the spread of coronavirus in Iran, Iran’s remaining window for national revenue—non-oil exports—would also, in the event of the country being placed under quarantine, be substantially closed, creating another challenge.

The large question in any major epidemic is always: how many hospital beds are available to help patients? And how much specialized protective clothing can be provided for healthcare teams? Even at the global level these are major challenges for advanced countries.

In previous outbreaks of deadly viruses since 2003, the world responded very rapidly by drawing on earlier experience. In the present case too, China’s rapid action allowed the coronavirus genome to be identified quickly and its findings to be made available to countries around the world for research. Countries acted rapidly to impose restrictions, and yet the virus continued to spread. If the trajectory then underway continued, it was even possible that in less than twelve months half the world might be infected. It was also possible that, in future years, even after a vaccine was discovered, the world might have to prepare for coronavirus to remain endemic alongside colds and influenza during the colder seasons.

Everything I have written to this point has been a painful attempt to offer a realistic view of the conditions ahead. But the purpose of the piece is not to stop amid all the fears and dark points before us. We human beings have always assessed risk not through logical analysis alone but through our instincts and emotions.

An aeroplane crash, for example, is always a catastrophe that receives extensive news coverage and provokes strong emotions in many of us because of the absolute number of deaths, yet the probability of its occurring is extremely small. Tens of thousands of flights take place every day across the world, producing only a handful of aviation accidents each year. Even so, our evaluation of flying is shaped not by probabilities but by the emotions created in us by news reports and images of previous crashes.

The present condition of coronavirus reporting around the world is as if every day we were hearing reports of dozens of fatal aeroplane crashes while also facing the possibility of being sent on a flight every day. Part of our profound fear of coronavirus is shared by people everywhere in the world, and this unconscious evaluation of risk forms part of that collective fear.