Redeeming Time

Fear and the Coronavirus

There appear to a climate of fear in people of many countries which are far from the epicenter of the 2019 nCoV epidemic in Wuhan and Hebei provincial, China. Even though there are only a handful of patients in their country and most of these have been to the epicenter, or being in contact with people from there, the state of fear of being infected by the corona virus remain high. People scan the news media frequently (sometimes every few minutes) to see the latest tally of infected cases and death as one will follow the Olympics medals tally. Fear is visceral and irrational. One will rather believe the latest rumor or fake news than follow reputable websites or official announcements. Fear leads to mass hysteria, like hoarding of food, and of toilet papers!

To deal with our fear of the outbreak, let us ask ourselves a few questions.

Firstly, what are the facts? The virus outbreak started in January 2020 and have since infected confirmed cases and cause the death of more than a 1,000 people. It is contagious but the majority of people who were infected had mild symptoms like, fever, cough, and runny nose. Some has abdominal pain and diarrhea. This is common to any virus infection. Only about 2.4% died from respiratory complications. The majority of death occur among the elderly with other medical ailments such as diabetes, kidney failure, heart conditions, and lung problems. All but two of these deaths occur in China itself. Not exactly a pandemic (WHO is reluctant to labor it an epidemic), a worldwide outbreak. And, not exactly, an end of the world scenario. People are not dying in the streets. Why the fear?

Secondly, can we control the event? Obviously not. An epidemic that is happening thousands of miles away are way beyond our control. Even the China health authorities and WHO cannot control the outbreak. What they are doing is try to contain the outbreak and they are doing a good job in this. The China authorities worked hard in quarantine a city (something no one had done before), limiting travel, building quarantine hospitals (within 10 days!), and sharing information. This is a new virus and by sharing the newly sequenced genome, the Chinese scientists has enabled the rest of the world to quickly work to understand the virus and to create a vaccine.

Thirdly, can we do anything about it? Again, no. What we can do in our little part of the world is to maintain our personal hygiene and trust our own healthcare services to do their job.

Finally, if we have not control over and we cannot do anything about the outbreak, then what we do with our fear? We can submit to our fear of the outbreak and live in a constant state of stress. Or we can submit to the One who in in control and can act on the situation. Jesus gave us some good advice in Matthew 6:25–34 (NIV)

Do Not Worry

25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will b