Common Sense is not that Common

This coronavirus is making me sick! And not in the way you might think.

I am sick of hearing about it and I am sick of people who are just so ignorant; those who feast on drama and those who are so intent on creating fear just to suit their own agendas.

And we are all falling for it.

I am not saying the coronavirus is of no concern. Sure, it is a new and highly contagious strand of the flu. One we currently have no vaccine for….

Why do we need a vaccine anyway?

When they release the vaccine, are we all going to run out and get the shot? Who pays for the vaccine anyway. We may be told, in the same way as we are for the flu shot, that it is free. Do you seriously believe that?

Pharmaceutical companies are among the richest and most powerful in the world. Do you think they create things without wanting to be paid for them? For the greater good of all mankind? Sure!

Someone has to pay, even if it ends up being the government; which in turn is us, the tax payers. The government’s money is not their's, it belongs to us. So, ultimately, we pay.

Now, I know from my marketing background that the best way to sell something is to create a problem that no-one knew they had, and then save the day by providing the solution. There is evidence of this all around us. Take a closer look at the beauty and cosmetic industry. They tell us what we should look like. They provide the benchmarks of what we all should aspire to look like. They point out the flaws we never even noticed before, and then they give us the solution; the one that will help us get closer to the benchmark.

But this is life; this is how people make money. It’s not their fault really. We are the ones who fall for it. Never before has the benchmark been so high. Never has that benchmark been in our face 24/7 as much as it today, fuelled of course by social media.

So back to the flu shot. Why has it become so critical in the past few years for all of us to get the flu shot? I get it for those who are at high risk, but for the rest of us? It’s very obvious to me that with each jab of the vaccine administered, the vaccine provider’s bank balance goes up. Someone, somewhere created this fear around the flu and now we all go out to get the jabs to prevent us from getting sick.

(I just watched a video of Donald Trump saying that the vaccine is closer than we think. Really? You don’t say!)

Influenza is pretty serious, and let me tell you that most of us have never had it before. I am not talking about a cold, I am talking about the real deal.

A few years ago, my father, who religiously gets a flu shot at the start of every season because he falls into a high risk category, contracted Influenza A. I don’t ever recall my father taking a day off work; he still doesn’t, but he was forced to and he was home for almost two weeks. This flu was so serious that it could have had dire consequences. The flu shot did not prevent him from getting sick. The reason why it didn’t is that it doesn’t cover every single strain of the flu, only the most common strains.

So why are the risks around this coronavirus any different to the risks we face with each flu season? The reason we are encouraged to take the supposedly free flu shot, is that the cost to the economy of having people away from work is higher than the cost of administering the flu shot. It also saves on doctors’ visits, Medicare payouts, and relieves some pressure from the public hospitals.

Running a country is no different to running a business. It’s the bottom line and the key performance indicators that everyone is interested in.

I don’t believe in taking the flu shot, in the same way that I believe that I don’t need to willingly put any unnecessary and avoidable chemicals into my body. The best way to build up immunity is to actually get sick and build up resistance to these sicknesses. By taking vaccines and antibiotics you are reducing the ability of your body to do what it has been designed to do naturally.

I don’t want to get into the debate around children’s vaccinations. My children have been vaccinated. Whether I have done the right thing or not will remain to be seen. I too may have bought into fear and the pressure to do the right thing. I don’t judge people who choose not to vaccinate their children, but I understand some of the risks that come from having children who are not vaccinated in our schools etc. Like I said, I am not an expert in this field and like anything the risks need to be measured against the outcomes.

Coronavirus has personally cost me a great deal over the past few weeks. I am out of pocket almost $10K due to my daughter’s school trip to the USA being cancelled. It’s not looking likely that insurance will cover it...but the cost is even greater than that. My daughter misses out on a chance to attend a sport leadership program, a trip of a lifetime. Sure, she may get to go again, and to me, her safety is of paramount importance, but she will never be fifteen again…

Let’s put some things into perspective here. We are talking about the flu, not a nuclear bomb or the end of the world. We have a greater threat from the potential of another world war than we have of contracting this virus. Why are we all behaving like it’s the end of the world as we know it? I have news for you folks: that day hasn’t come yet!

We are hoarding and panic buying. The scenes are like something out of a movie. Are we for real? What’s next, looting? People are fighting over toilet paper. This is so ludicrous, it’s actually embarrassing, and the only positive is the comic relief you get from all of the memes on social media.

I can totally understand how wars break out now. Can we not see that what started with the potential risk of contracting a virus has now reached epidemic proportions of sheer stupidity? We are the ones who are now causing the damage. By buying into the hype and fear, we are creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. People complain about the price of things but now their actions are just putting prices up further.

Who are these people anyway?

I am yet to come across a person who is not being reasonable about all of this. There is not one person I have met who is truly fearful; inconvenienced yes, but also realistic about the risks. I have not met a person who has been panic buying and who doesn’t think it’s all a load of crap.

So who are these people?

Someone started the panic buying and those driven by fear followed. Now, the rest of us have no choice but to go out and stock up on things purely because they are things we need. Now, that’s how you catch a virus. And stupidity and lack of awareness is often much more difficult to cure than a simple virus.

We just had the 11th case of coronavirus confirmed in Victoria. That’s 11 out of 6.359M. That’s 0.00000173%. Whilst I am not trying to downplay the serious nature of this virus, but based purely on the numbers, that shows you that the common sense approach is actually working. There is more likelihood of someone dying because of a fight over toilet paper.

We have had one death in this country from Coronavirus. What we don’t know is if there were any other underlying medical issues involved in this death. We live in a very clean country, we have very high standards of hygiene and a very developed medical system. There is no safer place in the world than right here.

The cost of this virus as I have said before has very little to do with getting sick. The cost is fear, being manipulated and controlled. It’s the cost to the economy and the ripple effect this causes. The cost is likely to be yet another recession… and you just have to wonder if there is not much more to this picture than that which are being shown.

Please use common sense; simple hygiene practices that should be the norm anyway. Maintain your own personal space. Buy only what you need. There’s nothing wrong with going back to basics for a while if we need to. No one ever died by being stripped of a few luxuries and conveniences. Might make us appreciate what we have a little more.

We do not live in a third world country. Some people live on this earth without the basics. They live just fine, and they are much happier than we are. Trust me, I have seen it with my own eyes.