Why You Should Be Worried About the COVID-19 Pandemic
You have been hearing a lot in the news lately about a coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic. You have probably been thinking “what does that have to do with me?’ There is always something to worry about right? Natural disasters, terrorism and now a coronavirus pandemic?
The first two—natural disasters and terrorism have a lot in common. They both strike without warning, they leave death and destruction in their wake and they affect a local area. Now in the case of a natural disaster, that area can be fairly large, yet it doesn’t always affect the whole country or the global population. Worse case scenarios usually involved thousands dead and hundreds of millions in damage. A meteor hitting the planet would probably affect everyone on earth. A super volcano blowing up could affect the whole planet. Those are scenarios that scientists play out on their computers to see what might happen. Chances of those happening are much less than tornadoes, hurricanes, floods and earthquakes.
Lets take terrorism. Still, a very real threat and not one to be taken lightly. Lives are lost and millions of dollars of damage can be inflicted. But terrorists strike even more locally than natural disasters. If terrorists strike a major metropolitan area, it will affect that area and only ripple effects around the rest of the country. Deaths are in the immediate area, damage is confined again to the local area. A nuclear weapon going off, while local, would have a much more major impact on a larger number of people across the country. But life could go on in other areas of the country and world.
Now lets look at a pandemic. The coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic is affecting millions of people around the world, not just local populations. The death rate could be between 5 million and 100 million or more. The economic consequences will be catastrophic. It will affect the lives of every American.
When your business in New York depends on deliveries from Texas and those deliveries can’t be made because everyone in Texas is sick, then it will affect your business and your employee’s lives. Now multiply that across all states and across the globe, then you might start to see why a coronavirus pandemic will have such a far-reaching impact. Millions of workers out sick, schools, businesses shut down, transportation interrupted. Financial markets in chaos, hospitals over whelmed, lost income and financial defaults. The list could go on. This COVID-19 pandemic will be catastrophic, far more than any natural disaster or terrorist event.
At this time the chance of you individually being infected by COVID-19 is fairly low, but growing. Before this pandemic is over, it’s likely most people will be infected. Human to human transmission has been confirmed and scientists fear because those asymptomatic may be carriers of the virus, they are more broadly passing the virus from person to person, thus increasing the chance of a larger pandemic. Health experts say it is only a matter of time. While federal, state and local governments are now starting to take actions to prevent further spread of the virus, many others have not and don’t have the funds available to mitigate this pandemic.
Your best defense is to stay informed about COVID-19 and take the necessary steps to not be infected. Unlike a natural disaster or a terrorist event, a COVID-19 pandemic can be prepared for. Well-prepared plans will help you and your family get through a pandemic crisis and recover quicker than those who are not prepared.