Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt extend well beyond the crypto space. posted earlier today about the power of fear as the virus spreads.
During the 1918-1919 influenza pandemic ”Questionable theories about health, sanitation and medicine were rampant.” And we’re already starting to see instances of this in 2020, sometimes at the government level. Pseudoscience to the rescue! The Indian government is recommending homeopathy.
About 6,000 people on an Italian cruise ship have effectively been quarantined, not allowed to go ashore while testing was done for a passenger from Macau who’d come down with a fever and flu-like symptoms. If it turns out to be a confirmed case of coronavirus 2019-nCoV and passengers are not allowed to go ashore, how long before there’s a “mutiny” by enraged fearful passengers?
There’s now been the first person-to-person transmission of the disease in the United States, 400 miles from where I live. Everybody panic!
But anecdotally, there does seem to be at least a bit of fear in my neck of the woods. A few days ago, I was at Home Depot and out of curiosity, went to look at their stock of N95 masks. The shelves were full. Today, I was at Home Depot again. The shelves we all but picked clean. The “economy” boxes of 15, 25, and 40 masks were all gone. Only a few individual masks remained; I wouldn’t be surprised if they were gone by tomorrow. This even though we’ve seen story after story about the marginal protection that N95 masks offer when worn by someone not infected by the virus.
Things are moving fast. I wouldn’t be surprised if FUD about 2019 nCoV is spreading at least as fast as the virus itself.
PeakProsperity has a great page here, well worth bookmarking for their ongoing coverage of this rapidly changing story.
The picture of a render of a 2010 nCoV virion is from Wikipedia (CDC/ Alissa Eckert, MS; Dan Higgins, MAM • Public domain)