If there is a disease that could be causing more nightmares among the population than cancer itself, it is the coronavirus, and it is that this disease is in the air both literally and figuratively. It is an airborne pathogen that has made the front pages of the different media .

Although the media tend to exaggerate the effects of the new diseases, the truth is that this type of flu is causing a lot of excitement and the feeling of collective paranoia is causing more and more people to start buying more food in case they need to stay locked up for days in their homes , among many other things.

Overcome the irrational fear of contagion

Since the coronavirus appeared in the city of Wuhan in December last year, news has not stopped coming out about it. The world is constantly on the alert in case this disease crosses any more borders. The coronavirus epidemic has reached Italy and even Spain and it is feared that it will soon acquire pandemic proportions (although technically it has already acquired them), as is normal, this generates a lot of fear in the population.

Not only China, the country with the zero zone of contagion and that has had the most deaths, has registered a significant number of cases, but other Asian countries such as South Korea or Iran have expressed the high number of cases in their country. country, which has forced to close the border with nearby countries , suspend events, concerts and other public meetings.

But of course, the virus has not only stayed in these countries, but has already crossed America, Oceania and also Europe . In fact, in Italy it has become a real problem causing the famous Venice Carnival to be canceled, while in Spain for security reasons the Mobile World Congress has been canceled.

However, if there is something more dangerous than being infected with the coronavirus, it is fear and it is that the fear of contagion has contributed to a collective psychosis that has generated social alarmism that triggers a series of behaviors to avoid contagion that implies a profound damage to the social fabric.

The danger of misinformation

Although not all, most of the media have treated the coronavirus tremendously. Misinformation, hoaxes and exaggeration are very dangerous, and this accompanied by the laziness of many citizens to properly document the virus and the real consequences for their health has made what was nothing more than another stationary virus is seen practically as a death sentence.

Although these beliefs are not surprising in a world in which some parents think that vaccines cause autism, some beliefs that have been associated with rumors, conjecture or excess television, such as that the coronavirus was manufactured in a laboratory for the purpose to reduce the world population, they are absurd at best, and the truth is that they are quite unoriginal since the same was said with Ebola, avian flu, mad cow disease etc …

The truth is that the coronavirus does not differ much from a normal flu, its symptoms are practically the same: fever, cough and respiratory problems. In addition, their recovery is similar, and if you are a person with a good immune system, young and without respiratory problems or previous illnesses, it is most likely that you will recover at home in the old fashioned way: medicines, heat packs, tissues, film and blanket .

How to avoid fear?

The best way to avoid this fear is to document yourself. Most of the media do not necessarily have to be exaggerating the news, but some do look for it in a post that we spend more time looking at the screen. This is why it is best to counter the information with web pages and other specialized resources in medicine, such as the WHO, the Official College of Physicians and other institutions that will always report scientifically and truthfully .

Something that you will be happy to know and that will help you fight your fear is that, if you are a person who has not recently traveled to Asia or you do not know a positive case of the virus, you have a fairly remote chance of acquiring it , so in principle you will not have to worry. However, you should remain vigilant if you are a risk group since, if you are, it is better to take precautionary measures.

The recovery rate is much higher

So far, there are about 82,000 cases of coronavirus registered worldwide, 75,000 of those cases come from China. Being more than 2,500 deceased. However, although this sounds really terrifying, you should know that of those infected, more than 12,000 have recovered in their homes quietly and without further complications. Among the majority of the deceased, rather than saying that the cause was the coronavirus, it could be said that it was simply an incentive since they were older people with previous illnesses.

The fact that there is no vaccine for this disease does not mean that it is fatal, however, the media usually hype this kind of news focusing on only the bad, in fact, in psychology this has a name: negativity bias. We tend to pay more attention to the bad before the good, and in this case we are much more concerned with deaths than the recovery rate that is 10 times higher .

The common flu kills many more people

The common flu that we suffer every year is much more deadly than the coronavirus, in 2018, in the United States alone it caused the death of 8,000 people , a number four times greater than that of those who died from coronavirus in China.

Despite the fact that the flu is much more deadly, this disease is not treated as something serious by the media because unlike the coronavirus, the flu is not something new and does not arouse as much interest .