Coronavirus: the Latest Illness to Go Viral
The Coronavirus has already eclipsed Bird-Flu and Swine-Flu as the world’s number one viral illness — though the disease may have claimed more victims than at first glance.
With almost 100,000 confirmed cases and over 4,000 confirmed deaths worldwide, Coronavirus is most certainly no laughing matter. The disease first spawned in China’s Hubei province in late 2019, and has since set about engulfing the entire planet, with cases in Europe and America now running into the hundreds. In response, leading medical professionals have insisted that citizens must wash their hands regularly to prevent transmission of the virus amidst fears that any possible vaccination could be 18 months in the making. Coronavirus taskforces have however remained tight-lipped on plans to prevent the illness from going viral on the internet, as rampant hysteria continues to spread on social media platforms. Misleading news stories, conspiracy theories and Anti-Asian sentiment are rife and showing no sign of stopping — after all, no virus spreads quite as quickly as internet hoaxes do.
Among those contributing to the Coronavirus hellscape is bumbling supervillain Donald Trump Jr, who initially purported the illness — which has sent large parts of China into total lockdown — to be part of a left-wing fake-news conspiracy. Donald Trump, referring to himself in the third person, told Fox and Friends that Coronavirus is being used by the Democratic party as a means of removing Donald Trump from power, touting it the Trumpvirus and a work of negative media covfefe against him.
Trump slams these scurrilous attempts to challenge his totality by claiming “these people are infected badly”. Though it is still unclear whether Trump is referring to the bearers of Coronavirus or his political adversaries here, this does serve as a timely reminder of the seriousness of the pandemic. One may have even been forgiven, prior to Trump’s gaffe-ridden Coronavirus roundtable on Tuesday afternoon, for thinking that the President of the United States had actually read up on the illness before addressing the media. Instead he only further reinforced the issue at hand; that misinformation on the Coronavirus is the single biggest hurdle in curtailing its worldwide domination, especially when this misinformation is being perpetuated by the most influential person on earth.
After all, if the most powerful man in the world believes it’s a conspiracy, what are his underlings to think? Right-wing radio host and playmate of Donald Trump, Rush Limbaugh, agrees with the president, alerting his listeners that the virus is no worse than the common cold and is a hoax designed to destabilise the US stock market. Trump’s right hand man, Mike Pence, who is tasked with tackling the deadly virus, has been making media appearances in order to justify his boss’ bluster and play down fears of the illness. Elsewhere, news networks have been guilty of distributing sensationalist articles regarding Coronavirus. Trump’s arch nemesis, CNN, (which presumably stands for the Clownish Nitwit Network), reported that Coronavirus would be culpable for a drop in sales of Corona beer, as 38% of Americans wouldn’t buy Corona beer following the outbreak of the virus. The vaguely-worded study cited by CNN in fact uncovered that 38% of Americans wouldn’t buy corona anyway — not because it may be inexplicably linked to the Coronavirus, but because it tastes like watered-down cat piss.
On social media, conspiracy theories about the origins and severity of the disease have been doing the rounds, causing mass panic. Rumours that the illness was leaked from by Chinese lab — with the help of an errant salamander — were first circulated in January, and were further perpetuated by the Daily Mail in mid-February. Around the same time, a BBC report of a toilet paper heist in Hong Kong triggered pandemonium in Australian supermarkets as consumers grappled to buy up as much loo roll as they could. Others have pointed the finger at an entirely fictitious Chinese custom of eating bat soup as the origin of the virus — just a small glimpse at the strain of xenophobia spawned from the Coronavirus pandemic.
People of Chinese descent the world over have experienced abhorrent racism in the wake of the Coronavirus — members of the Chinese community in the UK have faced verbal and physical abuse based on the deplorable belief that because they look Chinese they must harbour the illness. In the US, Chinese restaurants have seen a significant downturn in business since the start of the year — with Chinatown districts being left near-deserted across the country. Wherever Coronavirus goes, anti-Asian xenophobia seems to follow — which is particularly pertinent ahead of the 2020 presidential election in what is an already deeply polarised America.
Above all else misinformation that presents Coronavirus to be either far worse, or far more overblown than it really is, is a needless distraction from the reality of an incredibly straightforward situation — at least as far as we citizens are concerned. In these trying times, it would be very easy to be hoodwinked by fake-news and misleading doublespeak from political leaders who have one eye on re-election, but I implore you not to be. Do not be dragged into the media-driven hysteria regarding the Coronavirus; do not be coerced into believing that all Asians harbour the illness, and do not be panicked into buying three hundred rolls of toilet paper. Instead, calmly wash your hands, close your laptop lid with your elbow, and just carry on with your life. That is, until a reputable public health authority instructs you otherwise.
