Malaysia must be extremely cautious about Covid-19
I HOPE it is not too late for my home country as I write this. As of February 19 2020, the Covid-19 novel coronavirus has at least a 2-3% mortality rate, and a much higher basic reproduction number – or the number of other people a patient infects on average – than initially suspected: at least 4.7-6.6 instead of 2.2-2.7. In short, it is at least as virulent as the flu, and much deadlier.
They say, “But drowning in bathtubs has killed more people than this virus!” Yes, but this completely misses the fact that, unlike bathtubs, a virus can end up killing orders of magnitudes more people in the blink of an eye. If countries as advanced as Singapore and Japan have difficulties in managing the virus, then we must not be complacent. While there will be some economic loss from a temporary travel and trade embargo on a large scale , it will pale in comparison to the unspeakable social and economic damage of an uncontrollable pandemic.
However, this doesn’t mean that you don’t end up looking left and right as you cross the road, even if you don’t think anything is going to happen. There is nothing irrational about being cautious when you have good reason to think that the entire country is at risk. As the CDC says: “we would rather be remembered for overreacting than underreacting.”
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