We used to metaphorically talk about people wearing masks in our society, meaning they were masquerading: pretending - for whatever reason - to be what they are not. Now, with the threat of the highly infectious corona virus spreading across the world, surgical -style masks are selling out of pharmacies all over the country. Rumors are spreading virally, too, fed by human fear and its toxic by-products: racism, survivalism and selfishness.
‘Chinese people are responsible for it!’ say the pseudo PSA mongers on FB, often those with national flags prominently on their profiles. ‘It’s the gross animal products they eat, the lack of hygiene in their wet markets, the way they are taking over the world, with their massive populations. This is karma: payback from the universe for their economic success.’
Readers of airport thrillers written by Dan Brown point out that a major viral research facility is located in Wuhan, a few hundred metres from the open markets where the virus is suspected to have first broken out. Perhaps there was covert research being carried out on biomedical weaponry - an airborne virus that was communicated through inter-human contact. Perhaps it was mistakenly let out too soon as the result of human error or industrial accident - or perhaps it is actually deliberately being unleashed, to cull the burgeoning population. I have seen people actually saying ‘65 million people are predicted to die from this. Perhaps that will bring the human race’s numbers back down into a controllable level.’
Perhaps Fortune 500 billionaires in first world countries are going to decide who lives and who dies, this year. And out come the alarmists and their awful predictions: of hospitals with 100,000 beds becoming morgues in the epicentre and breeding ground of the viral illness. A video circulating from Wuhan last week shows people dropping on the street, as in the days of the plague.
Two weeks ago, we saw climate refugees being evacuated from the Australian bush fires. Now we see people in hazmat suits in eerily deserted streets and shiny train stations and public buildings of a huge and industrialized city. We are told this is a new or novel virus, to which we as a species have not yet developed ‘herd immunity’.
The only thing we can be fairly certain of is that we can only limit our own likelihood of becoming infected by this virus by not going to the specific areas of China which are currently affected, and where people are dying; and by limiting our contact both in terms of proximity, and in terms of time spent, with people who are likely to be transmitters of the virus.
Those members of the community who are immuno-compromised will have to take special care: people whose immunity has been reduced by chronic illness, cancer, HIV/Aids, and other health conditions which make us vulnerable and likely to succumb, where a healthier and more robust person would recover, as if from a cold or flu.
It is how we respond to this common threat to our species that will reveal our level of national preparedness, and our individual humanity. 9 months ago, the Easter Attacks in this country unleashed virulent fear of terrorism, vengeance that was focused on particular communities, and escalating race hate expressed in speech and action.
This time, we can already see influencers on social media challenging these fear-based responses from the outset, with facts. We are far more likely to be at risk from a person who looks like us, but who has travelled from that area recently, than from all the South East Asian people who are living here, and have not recently been to China. It is inaccurate and actually racist to discriminate against people (by refusing to serve them in shops, for example) who fall into the ethnic category affected, if their recent travel history gives no cause for concern.
Just as there are optimal conditions for a biological hazard to thrive, go viral, and devastate us, there are societal conditions and psychological mindsets which escalate the likelihood of this impacting us in a disastrous way. This we have some control over.
We can choose NOT to spread false or inaccurate information. We can decide NOT to sensationalize. We can determinedly NOT buy up all the face masks in the pharmacies, so there are none left for others.
Instead, we can encourage greater production of face masks and protective clothing for health care providers, and urge better hygiene practices in the community, and ensure reduction of activities which could put us at risk. People suffering from coughs and flu symptoms could refrain from travel during the two weeks since they first felt unwell.
Illegal workers in the construction and sex industries, among those who are the least likely to self report, should be incentivized to report themselves if they are suffering symptoms that fit the diagnostic criteria of this virus. Doctors and health care workers should be supported to do their job, rather than criticized and accused. Unconscionable predators taking advantage of people’s faith in natural medicines and alternative remedies should not be touting miracle cures to vulnerable citizens with impunity.
Perhaps most importantly, we can each manage the toxic fear and anxiety in our own emotional state: we can do our best, and believe the best, refraining from acts of exclusion and social cruelty towards others. What we allow ourselves to think will become how we permit ourselves to act. Those actions will add to the consequences we all face. This is causality.
What will help us survive as a species is not shunning the sick, in a ghoulish enactment of ‘survival of the fittest’, but in developing generosity, and thinking not only of ourselves and those we care about, but of the community as a whole. It requires our evolution, as a species.
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