I’m reminded of a quote from White Men Can’t Jump, “Even the sun shines on a dog’s a** somedays….”. Remember that? It was pretty accurate then despite the saying being considered silly by a lot of people when thinking of it logically. But what it means is that even Hollywood can guess how human nature will take effect when an outbreak like the coronavirus comes along, and likening it to movies being able to ‘predict’ things that occur in life is just about silly. It’s true that some things have come to pass that the movies have predicted, and the movie Contagion is one that people had better hope that Hollywood didn’t fully predict since not only did the mortality rate in the movie jump to an insane level, but the parallels that have been drawn between the movie and what’s happening today are about standard when it comes to pretty much any disease that has been labeled an epidemic by the media and is something that people don’t fully understand. Jonathan Wright of We Got This Covered is right, human nature is unfortunately very predictable and the run on so many stores at the moment for supplies is still kind of confusing considering that some items being bought in bulk makes sense, like hand sanitizer. But bread? Toilet paper? Water makes a bit of sense considering that if the water supply was somehow tainted it might become a serious issue. But otherwise people are buying supplies as though they expect a nuclear fallout to occur, when in truth it’s a virus with a very low mortality rate.
There’s no need to downplay the virus since it has spread in a manner that’s been highly unnerving and has claimed thousands of lives at this point. But as tragic as this is, and it is to be certain, the number of lives lost compared to the number of those infected is quite small. Plus, what has been learned and shared at this point is that those who are the most susceptible to the virus are adults, and among those people that have serious health issues are at the greatest risk. In Contagion, pretty much everyone was at risk since the disease didn’t differentiate and just jumped from one person to another, taking down whoever came into contact with an infected individual. Hollywood is exceptionally good at making it appear as though they can predict what’s coming and are always a step ahead when it comes to explaining human nature, but the truth of it is that they’re good at guessing, and they’re very good at hyping something up in a way that many will take as a signal to start worrying, even if it’s in the very back of their minds, because it looks real enough on TV or in the theater. The media doesn’t help since it spreads what could be seen as useful information but it also continually spreads information that is geared towards letting people know that “THIS IS A REAL DANGER”. Yet the funny thing is that if there is a cure, many people that watch the media for their updates are among the last to know.
It’s true, Hollywood is good at guessing the human reaction to some of the worst occurrences in history, but apart from that the world hasn’t ended yet, zombies don’t exist at this moment, and as far as anyone knows aliens haven’t started to take over our society and a giant killer asteroid isn’t on a collision course with earth that will bring it into range within a year or so. In other words, we’ve weathered a great number of things as human beings throughout the years, and while each one might get or appear a little worse than the last, human beings know how to survive while Hollywood and the media know how to hype the diseases or disasters up and make people worry. Trying to get too concerned about a virus that has such a low mortality rate isn’t too hard if one has family or friends that have immune system deficiencies or are old enough that their immune system isn’t working properly. But to date the coronavirus has in fact killed people, but not nearly as many as have been infected. There is unfortunately no vaccine as of yet, but it’s definitely a work in progress as people can likely imagine. The fear-mongering going on at the moment that’s been seen in the media is very much like the movies and as it’s been seen it’s not too hard to get people worked up about these things. What is difficult is getting them to calm down and realize that even if they do get sick, there’s a good chance that their body will be able to fight it off naturally, especially if they’re already healthy and do their best to stay that way.
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