Editorial: Coronavirus is not alone

Every sniffle is starting to make people wonder about the latest looming monster.

Coronavirus.

Specifically, it is Wuhan coronavirus, a novel variety of a large family of viruses that include the hundreds of microscopic bugs that cause what we affectionately call “the common cold.” But nobody is afraid of a cold.

What makes it something the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has designated “a serious public health threat”? Severity. The cold causes a few uncomfortable days at work. Wuhan coronavirus can cause pneumonia and organ failure, and as a virus, isn’t impeded by antibiotics.

Scary.

But is it really scarier than the other monsters under our sickbeds? It’s a close relative of severe acute respiratory syndrome, which you probably remember as SARS from 2003. The surgical masks covering Chinese faces in pictures of the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak look hauntingly like those we saw 17 years ago.

SARS infected about 8,000 people and killed less than 10% of them. So far, Wuhan coronavirus is much less efficient. The New York Times said fewer than 1 in 40 diagnosed had died, and most of those were older men with previous health problems. The one asterisk there is that the numbers depend on data from the Chinese government. Some have wondered if China is downplaying the disease years after its mishandling of SARS.

There is a disease with a huge death toll that we seem to shrug off. It can also cause pneumonia and organ failure, as well as encephalitis and heart problems. It is also particularly deadly among an older population with existing medical conditions.

It’s the flu. Influenza isn’t just the monster under the bed. It’s the monster that sits on the couch and steals the remote. It is omnipresent, and therefore easier to ignore. But from 2010 to 2019, it claimed the lives of 337,000 Americans, according to the CDC. The estimated 170 deaths in China have prompted a global response, quarantines and travel lockdowns.

So far 33 people have died in Pennsylvania alone from the flu, and no one is stopping Pittsburghers from traveling anywhere.

We can take steps. We can wash our hands and cover our mouths and take all those day-to-day precautions that are good anytime people are sick. (And don’t forget your flu shot.)

The point isn’t that we should care less about the coronavirus, or ignore the next Zika or Ebola or H1N1. It’s that we have threats that come in and make themselves at home, and we shouldn’t let ourselves get complacent about the dangers that are already here.