We should be scared shitless of this disease but not of terrorist activity.
I don't think we should be scared shitless of this disease, if we handle it wisely, Kid.
The problem is that thus far
at every step the White House has handled it WRONG. It's efforts to minimize the effects, to misrepresent how deadly it has been thus far, and to try to control the message by muzzling the scientists who work for the government are exactly how the Spanish Flu became the big deal it became - limiting information flow, minimizing the risks, and lack of cooperation with others.
Ward posted a portion of a NYT article discussing the flu by comparison to this.
He chose to omit the death rate (thus far) among those who contract the disease, the ease with which it transmits, the incubation period's indeterminate length, and its extended 'life' on surfaces before dying.
It's a problem - we now have multiple cases for whom there is no
known vector.
I am not scared shitless because the rest of the world is not pretending nothing is happening the way they all did 100 years ago.
I am not scared shitless because our baseline health is
vastly better than it was then and our capacity to care for the sick is far higher.
But, listen, jerk! Not being scared shitless doesn't mean I want our government sending in folks to deal with exposed people who don't have
any protection, as our government already did once! I don't want our hospitals releasing folks without their having been tested and cleard (as one did in Italy). I don't want our equivalent of a Health Minister going on TV to announce that everything is under control, while sweating profusely because he was already sick (and not quarantined, yet, himself), as Iran saw!
And should quarantines come to our communities, not just individual buildings or cruise ships, I don't want assholes like you trying to break it because you fucking think it is fake news!