Emotions guiding response is the antithesis of evidence-based logic that should reign in science and medicine. Speculation and extrapolation work against these principles.
From the WHO:
Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, Director, Epidemic and Pandemic Management, clarified, "This is not covid, nor influenza, it spreads very differently . . . We currently have no symptomatic passengers or crew onboard. In past outbreaks of Andes virus, human-to-human transmission primarily occurred among close contacts," she added.
Dr. Abdirahman Mahamud, Director at the Alert and Response Coordination Department of the WHO's Emergencies Health Programme, said, "We had a similar situation in Argentina in 2018 - 2019, where a symptomatic individual attended a social gathering that led to a lot of people getting infected. We are in a similar situation right now, with a cluster in a confined space and close contact. If we follow public health measures, with contact tracing and isolation, we can break this chain of transmission. It doesn't need to be a large epidemic. It has happened in a specific confined setting where people are interacting in a prolonged close contact," added. Dr. Mahamud.
"It is similar to the Agrentia outbreak, and we don't anticipate a large epidemic. With public health measures, we can break the chain of transmission, and this will be a limited outbreak."
Dr. Van Kerkhove also stressed, "This is not coronavirus. This is a very different virus that has existed for quite some time. This is not the beginning of a Covid pandemic; this is an outbreak we are observing on the ship, occurring in a confined area."
Emphases mine. There are enough things in the world we genuinely need to worry about. Setting one more log on the pyre when people are already walking mental health disasters feels flippant and cruel. People don't need to be freaked out any more than they already are.
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