
A rational argument for panic: coronavirus edition - forrestbrazeal
https://medium.com/@FaustianDilemma/a-rational-argument-for-panic-coronavirus-edition-e25eec64e310
======
majos
This article, and other writings on covid-19 I have read recently, makes the
weird choice to treat "panic" and "take threat seriously" as synonyms. As far
as I can tell, they aren't. If you look up panic in your favorite dictionary,
the definition probably looks like "sudden fright _that causes irrational
behavior_ ". It may be "time to take covid-19 seriously", it is never "time to
panic".

Those semantics aside, the article does make a reasonable case for taking
covid-19 seriously. One sticky point: that graphic with the rather scary
looking USA infection projections is not from "the AHA", it's from a webinar
presentation hosted by the AHA [1]. The presentation is, as far as I can tell,
not an official endorsement by the AHA. That said, the presenter was James
Lawler [2], who does seem to be some variety of expert on global health risks.
How optimistic or pessimistic he is relative to comparable experts, I don't
know.

[1]
[https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/coronaviru...](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/coronavirus-
dr-james-lawler-warning-us-hospitals-infection-a9385031.html)

[2]
[https://www.unmc.edu/intmed/divisions/id/faculty/lawler.html](https://www.unmc.edu/intmed/divisions/id/faculty/lawler.html)

