I think we should count our blessings. The coronavirus is not the Bubonic Plague (aka the Black Death) which killed 25 million people in just a few months in the 6th century. It’s not smallpox which killed roughly 400,000 people every single year of the 18th century. It’s not measles which killed 200 million people in the 19th and 20th centuries. It’s not the Spanish Flu that claimed 50 million lives in 1918. In fact, scientists say the coronavirus is extremely contagious because it doesn’t quickly kill its victims.

But, it’s the extremely rapid rate of spread that is putting pressure on hospitals and causing a general sense of panic. Last time I wrote this column there weren’t even 100,000 global cases confirmed and only 60 in the U.S. As of March 26, Johns Hopkins is reporting nearly half a million confirmed cases worldwide, with the U.S. about to tip the 70,000 mark and overtake Italy and China as the country with the most confirmed cases. (https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html)

So yes, the coronavirus is spreading like wildfire, and yes, the recovery rate is extremely high.

Still, despite the scientific evidence saying that you most likely won’t die if you get the coronavirus, these are scary times because we’re literally living through the fear of the unknown, the greatest of them all. 

Humans are by nature social creatures of habit. Take away our ability to socialize and our daily routines, and that fear is compounded.

In this issue, Contract Pharma contributing editor Ben Locwin is back at it, picking up where he left off in March. In this issue’s cover story, “COVID-19: Architecture of a Pandemic,” he takes a deeper dive into the coronavirus panic. “What we actually have is a Public Panic Pandemic, where the information fed to the population and their response to it, has created a pernicious cycle that’s leading to worse outcomes than the coronavirus itself,” he says.

And I agree. Because the science says so.

When this coronavirus passes—and it will pass—will we remember this time more for the impact of the virus on our physical health, or mental health? On actual pain suffered, or imagined horrors?

The more news we read, the more anxious we become. The more news we watch the scarier the world seems. The more social media we engage, the more adrift we feel in not knowing who or what to believe.

We’re living in uncertain times the likes of which none of us have experienced before. Unless you were alive during WWII?

Speaking of which, the other day my 11-year-old daughter was pacing around bored, missing her friends, school and dance classes. Rather than give her some direct “Dad” advice that would almost certainly end in a heavy eye roll, I took her for a walk to the book shelf, pulled out The Diary of Anne Frank, gave it to her to read and told her to count her blessings.

Tim Wright, Editor
twright@rodmanmedia.com