Although the coronavirus or Covid-19 has just recently been recognized as a global pandemic, the reaction of the public has been quite different from their reaction with regards to the previous pandemics. The world has seen other pandemics in the past century but the global panic of the coronavirus or Covid-19 is by far one of the greatest.
What has changed between then and now?
Back then the dissemination of information was done in an orderly manner since Social Medias were not yet as strong as they are recently. Nowadays, spreading fake news and conspiracies can be done without having to upload a whole article to a reputable website but rather through social media in the comforts of everyone's home.
Swine flu was a big problem but it did not solicit this kind of reaction
Way back in 2009, the World Health Organization also known as WHO declared swine flu to be the very first influenza pandemic of the 21st century! The swine flu which is also known as H1N1 has been a subtype virus of influenza which has resulted into infection, dry cough, fever, pneumonia, acute respiratory distress, and even death! Sounds familiar right?
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The coronavirus has almost the same symptoms as the H1N1 but until this day, not a satisfactory amount of people know anything about the H1N1 which was also a deadly global pandemic handled in the past. Now that everyone is voicing out their opinions on the coronavirus or Covid-19, panic starts to spread.
Social media has caused most of the panic
When the swine flu first came out, its veracity was almost as deadly as the coronavirus or Covid-19 but since everyone cooperated and the public did not panic, the swine flu was properly dealt with at the end of the day. The parliamentary secretary, Mr. Mario Galea, has given is own thoughts about the swine flu pandemic.
According to Mr. Mario Galea, "When a patient was diagnosed with swine flu, we used to do contact tracing and also make sure that people close to the patient would also self-quarantine". This allowed the officials to properly work on the cure while everybody did their part and participated in self-quarantine to avoid infecting others.
Panic was still present with regards to the swine flu but not as great
Mr. Mario Galea continued his speech stating that there was panic but not that bad. In his own words, "There was a lot of panic, but I believe not as much as we are seeing currently. Firstly, what we are seeing in Italy is too close for comfort, and that social media does not distinguish fake news whatsoever."
The battle against the coronavirus or Covid-19 is a battle against fake news and the spread of panic which instead of helping has caused even more damage to the community, to diplomacy, and even to the wellbeing of every single individual since this has now become a global pandemic.
