If the Covid-19 pandemic has made one thing evident in recent months, it is that the media should restrain itself and act responsibly. It should stop feeding the coronavirus hysteria with daily infection and death statistic updates, which are carelessly presented and often misinterpreted. Draconian measures were taken around the globe based on emotions and estimates from unvalidated data. This is a dangerous precedent for the future.

By Arthur Blok
One of the most outstanding scientists and activists of the 20th century, Linus Pauling, once said, “Science is the search for the truth, the effort to understand the world. It involves the rejection of bias, of dogma, of revelation, but not the rejection of morality.” Pauling is one of four individuals to have won more than one Nobel Prize; he earned the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1954 for his scientific skills and the Nobel Peace Prize in 1962 for his peace activism.

The above quotation could not be more accurate today. With some exceptions, the world has entered a dangerous phase where national and international health institutes have lost common sense. They are overrating their roles; thus, as a direct consequence, they are misinforming the governments they are supposed to serve. Harsh actions are undertaken with far-reaching effects based on assumptions and computer models. Decisions have been made in reaction to emotional calls from the public, which, in its collective anxiety, almost demands a state-led panic.

We are now a couple of months into the crisis, and countries still lack reliable data on the frequency of COVID-19 in a representative random sample of the general population. A fair question from that perspective is: based on which valid scientific data is it justified to order the closure of airports, forcing people into social lockdowns and shutting down economies?

Where is the data to support these severe measures? Do the expected health benefits measure up to the dramatic consequences that will be felt for years to come? Most mainstream media have collectively forgotten to ask these questions.

Stasi methods
In some European countries, including the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, and in other parts of the world, new Stasi methods are receiving dangerous levels of support from the general public. Local police are advertising portals, special telephone numbers, and even launched applications for its citizens to inform their neighbours about breaking the ‘social distancing’ rules; the late Stasi chief, Erich Mielke, would be proud.

Police call centres are now answering calls from ‘worried’ neighbours who call to say their neighbour went out for a second or third time a day, or that they hosted a group of friends at home. In weeks, we created a global Orwellian society 2.0 where it is broadly accepted that the police will use drones to see if people obey the rules with speakers attached to warn people to go back home in their social lockdown. This is for our safety, of course.

Owing to the media-fed hysteria, everyone is now a viral expert. For weeks, global media outlets have reported daily on the consequences of the coronavirus crisis and what one should or should not do. It is trending on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook, to name a few. The coronavirus hysteria has gone viral week after week.

According to many, including the World Health Organisation (WHO), we are in the middle of an unprecedented global health emergency. As the number of Covid-19 infections grows, it must be said that the world is reacting with inevitable levels of apocalyptic doom. Sales of face masks have soared. People are afraid to go out, socialise, shake hands, and do everything that makes us human; in short, people are scared to be human.

Do not let there be a misunderstanding when reading this article. The threat from this strain of coronavirus is not denied; however, it must be seen in perspective. And, at least for the time being, panic must be doused.

Research published in scientific journals reports that new coronavirus strains are transmitted from person to person each year. Believe it or not, most of us carry a coronavirus in our system, but it does not make us sick. It is the level that determines whether you get ill.

There is SARS-CoV-2, a mutated strain that is more aggressive than our average seasonal flu. According to official figures, including those from the WHO, roughly 95% of infected people experience mild to moderate respiratory illness and recover without requiring treatment. Older people and those with underlying medical problems like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, chronic respiratory disease, and cancer are more likely to develop severe illness.

This means that 95% of people have nothing to worry about. From the remaining 5%, about one-fifth get thoughtfully or critically ill while over 80% recover; this means that from all the recorded cases, the mortality rate is now estimated between 2% and 3,4%. The WHO has communicated the last figure in the? Whether this final figure is ‘death by Covid-19’ or ‘with Covid-19’ remains unclear.

That is quite an important distinction. Because not every member of the public is tested, many scientists estimate the mortality rate to be 1% or lower. By comparison, the case fatality rates for SARS and MERS were 10% and 34%, respectively.

The WHO estimates that 300,000 to 650,000 people die each year from complications of seasonal influenza (flu) viruses. This conservative estimate corresponds to 800 to 1,780 deaths per day from the seasonal flu during the winter months. Let’s look at this winter for comparison. In the U.S. alone, the flu has caused an estimated 38 million illnesses, 390,000 hospitalisations, and at least 23,000 deaths this season (until mid-March 2020), according to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.

Testing method
In reality, three months after the outbreak began, most countries still could not test many people. To illustrate, the only situation in which an entire closed population was tested was the Diamond Princess cruise ship and its quarantine passengers. On 1 February, a passenger who had disembarked from the boat tested positive for the COVID-19 coronavirus.

The ship was quarantined immediately after, with 3,711 passengers and crew members on board. Over the next month, more than 700 people on board were infected, and for weeks, it dominated the news as the largest outbreak outside China.

Officials conducted over 3,000 tests on board, including older passengers and those with symptoms. Almost 20% of all the infected people on board had no signs, and the case fatality rate on the ship was just 1.0%, even though the population on board the vessel consisted mainly of older adults, the group for whom the death rate from Covid-19 is much higher.

There is currently no official test for SARS-CoV-2. The most commonly used test is the polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), which can detect viral particles in a person. Various scientific sources suggest that the test is only sometimes accurate, as was also proven in the Diamond Princess cases. It locates a coronavirus gene sequence and generates multiple copies that are easily detectable.

Simply put, it tests whether a person has coronavirus, not necessarily Covid-19. If one wants to test for COVID-19, an antibody test is required, and that is yet to be widely available on the market.

Ideally, to make valid interpretations, the entire population should be tested, or, as explained earlier, at least a representative random sample. Most people who have finished a university degree will remember this. Without that being done, in the current context, it is fair to ask whether most people subjected to this method and considered positive have Covid-19 or another coronavirus strain.

As mentioned above, it is commonly known that multiple coronaviruses appear annually during the winter. Having said that, how inflated - and trustworthy are the daily updates on Covid-19 figures around the globe? Could this be why over 95% have cold and flu-like symptoms?

At least for the UK government, the statistics so far are not enough to justify continuing to classify the coronavirus as a Highly Consequential Infectious Disease (HCID), a decision in effect since March 19. According to UK health experts, this does not mean it is safe to resume everyday life quite yet. Still, it is an essential development in the virus's spread since its classification as an HCID in January. On top of that, if one compares death statistics in the country in the first months of 2020 versus those of 2019, there is no increase in the overall death rate.

Italy
Why, then, are the events in northern Italy so dramatic? Multiple explanations can be proposed. Firstly, one must examine the demographics of the most affected regions. Northern Italy has the most elderly population in Europe. Almost one-quarter of the population is 65 years or older, a much higher rate than most other Northern European countries. It has been deemed inevitable that Covid-19 is far more dangerous for the elderly.

In Italy, the average age of people who have died is 80+ years. Most of these people had other underlying diseases. For example, Italy has a strong smoking tradition, which causes high rates of obstructive lung diseases and coronary heart diseases. These are all decisive risk factors that can lead to infection with COVID-19. One could argue that many of these people would not have had high life expectancy rates without the virus.

The current trend in the media - and official statistics – is to attribute all the deaths to Covid-19. While a more valid interpretation would be: how many people died with Covid-19, and how many by Covid-19? How many people in this group would have died of seasonal flu complications? This is crucial data to have before reaching a conclusion.

To make matters more delicate, Italy has relatively few Intensive Care (IC) beds compared with countries like Germany, the Netherlands, and the UK. Every winter, the system runs at full capacity, with 90-98% occupancy. A bit of extra demand makes it relatively easy for the system to collapse.

Ironically, the mismanagement of health facilities also played a crucial role. Italy was the first country in Europe to be hit; in the early stages of the spread, many people were admitted to the hospital with symptoms which were not so severe. This resulted in fewer IC beds for patients in acute danger, creating dramatic scenes.

As a result, many of the medical personnel, almost 3000, got infected and had to stay home from work. This made the situation even worse. Add to that a lack of preventive measures by local authorities in the early stages, and one has the answer to why the virus spread so fast in that region and into other areas of Northern Europe.

These facts must be considered when using Italy as an example of the dangers of Covid-19 and when taking collective measures. This could also explain why, in many other European countries, the figures are much less dramatic, stabilised, and, in some, now in decline.

Despite these clear facts, the global panic is massive and still being fed by local health institutes, the WHO and mainstream media. There seems to be less attention to a more objective approach and to balanced news coverage on the front pages of newspapers and on the homepages of frequently visited websites. From a commercial perspective, it makes sense because fear and panic sell.

Why not have mass media coverage and daily updates on seasonal flu deaths or live coverage of people who die daily in traffic accidents or air pollution? Why not go live to hospitals every evening on prime time to report on the more than 10 million people who die of cancer annually?

China will lift its lockdown measures in Hubei province in just a few days. In the city of Wuhan, life will return to normal. In recent weeks, there have been a few new confirmed cases, all of which were brought into the country by travellers from China.

While the rest of the world is in mayhem, China reopens and returns to normal. In a friendly gesture, it has offered affected nations massive discounts and speedy delivery of surgical facemasks. Out of sight of the rest of the world, the Chinese government and investors are buying large shares in Western companies - now available at bargain prices due to the economic shutdowns and devastating economic consequences.

As stated in the introduction, the effects of the social and economic shutdowns will be felt for years to come. It is fair to emphasise that the facts never justified these actions, and it remains to be seen if these measures will have the intended health benefits. Other creative and cost-effective solutions, such as extra protection for vulnerable groups, should have been considered.

More people will likely die due to the caused social and economic unrest than were prevented. How many people will die because of economic deprivation, or commit suicide because they have lost everything they had? The longer social distancing, lockdowns, and economic shutdowns persist, the greater the risk of civil strife and even wars between nations.

One lesson to be learned from this crisis is that the mainstream media has lost its traditional role and that the world is incapable of coping with new and acute health threats. Global institutions like the WHO have proven ineffective and counterproductive, and have become part of the problems they are meant to solve instead.

This analysis aims to help people make their judgments about what is currently happening in the world. Do not overreact when reading the daily death toll and new infection updates. Consider all the facts and perspectives before buying into fear and participating in collective hysteria.

Various experts seem to agree that Covid-19 will not survive into the summer. Hopefully, by then, we will reflect on this crisis and realise that we collectively were blind to the larger picture. If this misinformation and global hysteria are not a precedent for the future, we will all be okay.