Why We Shouldn’t Panic Over Coronavirus

The panic over the coronavirus is real and it has wiped out the toilet paper from the supermarket shelves. It’s clear that we’re challenged as a society, and now is the time to stand together while keeping a two-meter distance from each other of course.

Why do we panic?

Despite the sophisticated construct we’ve created as a society, individualistic primal instincts of survival take over in these critical times and we make a very rational decision to buy large reserves of food and sell value equities in possession. Ironically, besides the virus, also fear is a highly contagious phenomenon, rolling up into a snowball effect and eventually, hurting the economy we’ve been working so hard to grow and maintain throughout our working lifetime.

Fear of the unknown

Uncertainty is one of the biggest facilitators of the “panicdemic”. we don’t know how long this lasts, how it will impact the food supplies or when we find the cure. we don’t even know how deadly this horrified virus is. It is hardly possible to draw conclusions based on the data we have at the moment. Fact is that some of the projections and speculations are wild and scary.

It’s not a secret anymore that the world economy will be disrupted in the coming weeks and the decline in growth is inevitable. Yet, we as a society can influence the level of disturbance in the growth curve. Cope with the dip better!

What can we do?

It’s not easy to point out to somebody not to panic when you have no power or even understanding of the threat the fear is raging over. Still, we need to understand few facts:

• Chicken and cows won’t panic. We still get eggs and milk from them.
• Thousands of brilliant minds are working on finding a cure and a vaccine, so stay put.
• Panic selling and saving will hurt all of us more on the long run!

We need to flatten both the spread curve of the coronavirus and the depth of the economic decline. For the first one, we know the drill. Wash your hands and avoid contact with people to the utmost.

In today’s information world, our devices connected to the web are the most powerful weapons to fight the “panicdemic”. We need to advocate common sense and try not to pour fuel on the fire. No bars, no restaurants, no Friday drinking and no sacrificed weekends to the lord of headache, the glorious hangover. We have lots of time on our hands to create positive content. We need to concentrate on the positive and think optimistically

Talk to those who fear. Explain that this is temporary. Don’t make rushed decisions. Call me an optimist but, I’m excited about the opportunities we will have when all this blows over and we gravitate towards a new bright future rather than concentrating on negatives. I believe this is a great wake up call for humanity to improve its readiness for such pandemics.

Gio Abramishvili