essay on looking beyond covid-19.
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Perspective and proportion are everything in this Pandemic of Fear that now consumes our attention and our daily lives. With very rare exceptions the media ignores this. As I write there have been world-wide 436,005 deaths from Coronavirus. But a remarkable, barely noticed, 4,137,712 have recovered.
In comparison, the number who died last year from AIDS/HIV is 770,000. In its worst year – 2004 ) – it claimed 1,600,000 lives. The number who died from alcohol consumption last year was 3 million. Smoking claimed 8 million deaths last year. The number from malaria was almost the same as deaths from Corona: 416,000. The number who died in motor accidents was 1.35 million. Traffic injuries are now the top killer of people aged five to twenty-nine.
The screamers must stop or at least get a hold of themselves- except in countries like India and Brazil where the Coronavirus is in danger of becoming out of control.
A simple question is raised: Why aren’t we putting the same energy as we are into the Coronavirus into defeating AIDS/HIV, alcoholism, smoking, malaria infections and traffic accidents? Why? Why? Why? The human being is supposed to be rational or, at least, attempting rationality.