This is sensational news.
Coronavirus Explodes in Italy, Threatening Europe. Can It Be Contained?
Likewise, this article has sensational language ("explodes" "threatening") but gives actual figures within the subtitle. It also gives a realistic report of over 50000 people quarantined within their homes.
Italian authorities have locked down several towns and villages after more than 150 cases of the deadly coronavirus were confirmed and three people have died.
Population of Italy: 60,461,826
(150/60,461,826) * 100 would be our percent.
Leaving out only three people have died (I dunno how recent this is, but again let's stop the hysteria and I'll tell you why below), and just focusing on afflicted, that number is 2.480904232035599e-4 %. That is 2.480904232035599 x 10^-4 or 0.00002480904232035599% of people even get it. I may have goofed on the decimal place, but it's still absurd. And of that 150, only 2% of that percent have died. Not 50%.
Update: Adjusting for the new numbers, the 50% (even if it is 50% of those contracted, it is not REALLY 50%). What did they say 17,000? 20,000 now? Let's say 20k. 0.033078723093808% has been afflicted. Since despite the earlier quarantine, the number has jumped from 150 to 17,000+ I would say quarantining has
backfired, wouldn't you? Better that people flee to the beaches or wilderness or something.
But if we aren't fearful, aren't we putting lives at risk?
Why shouldn't we be fearful? Isn't dangerous to not take this seriously? Well, let's imagine I light a cigarette in a crowded theatre. Now suppose some goofball yells FIRE, and people panic? What happens?
People get stomped.
What happens during a panic is far worse than any disease.
1. People stockpile food. This creates
mass starvation.
2. Supposing they are allowed to seek medical treatment,
people flood hospitals. Not only does the increase the odds of hypochondriacs actually
contracting the disease since those sick are in the
same space as those who think they are sick, but those who aren't really sick create issues when someone for instance falls down the stairs or is dehydrated or half-starved.
Shorthanded medical treatment is a public danger. If we had dedicated treatment centers just for that, sure go ahead, but instead they affect other medicine.
3. When people get into a state of panic,
they literally hurt each other. The scapegoat mindset is in full effect, and people fight over anything from supposedly having more food to supposedly being healthy from receiving secret treatment.
4. The risk of people hurting each other rises the closer proximity they get, and the more frantic the become about not being able to go outside.
They also are more likely to spread disease. Every year, we do like we've been doing and a percent of us die. Why does China have such a huge number? I'll give you a hint:
Still think having people packed indoors unable to get away is a good idea?
For the record, during the Black Plague closely-knit communities where people never traveled was a thing too. During the Spanish Flu of 1918, many people were close together in trenches and had compromised immune systems by the time the war ended.
50,000 people die of the flu each year, just in America. 650,000 die worldwide. No quarantine, no closed facilities. Maybe they should be, but this is not my call. My call is to call out on scare news.
Could this become a pandemic? I suppose if people were really unsafe, but that wouldn't happen normally. Not unless people were all locked indoors together or something... In countries where towns have spaced apart houses disease is slowed down from moving from person to person and people gradually recover.
If people panic on the other hand, those that live get caught up in violence or other issues.
