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Opinion | Are we overreacting to the coronavirus threat and merely creating bigger risks down the road?
- For a virus with a lower fatality rate than peak flu season in the US, millions are being quarantined, borders closed, flights cut and economic and political costs are mounting
- With human rights swept aside and public health politicised, are we creating more problems than we hope to solve?
Reading Time:4 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
The World Health Organisation estimates the case fatality rate for the novel coronavirus at 2 per cent. Other estimates range from 3.5 to 4 per cent. While the illness is life-threatening for some, most of those infected will experience only mild, flu-like symptoms.
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Although WHO director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has declared a global health emergency, the concern, he said, was not due to health concerns in China but the inability of weaker public health care systems in other countries to manage the outbreak.
Regarding the case fatality rate, six factors should be considered. First, this virus has shown a capacity to mutate, which can affect the rate. Second, these are early days, and firmer estimates are likely to come a year or so later, once the outbreak has been contained.
Third, it may be dangerous to make assumptions given the experience of previous coronavirus outbreaks such as with severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (Mers), as well as the worry that new viruses can exploit weak immune systems with few, if any, antibodies to defend an infection.
Fourth, the case fatality rate may be low due to vast under-reporting or information suppression – although the WHO, other global health experts and America’s national security adviser Robert O’Brien have praised China for its transparency and information sharing during this outbreak, official cremation protocols have fed allegations of cover-ups in anti-China tabloids.
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