{"id":12238,"date":"2020-03-07T12:38:16","date_gmt":"2020-03-07T20:38:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=12238"},"modified":"2020-03-07T12:38:24","modified_gmt":"2020-03-07T20:38:24","slug":"what-we-dont-know-about-the-coronavirus-is-what-scares-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/what-we-dont-know-about-the-coronavirus-is-what-scares-us\/","title":{"rendered":"What We Don\u2019t Know about the Coronavirus Is What Scares Us"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The&nbsp;recent spread of the coronavirus is causing a global panic. Our shared terror arises not so much from the death toll of the new flu-like disease \u2014 more than 3,000 people have died worldwide \u2014 but from what we don\u2019t know about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Experts at least agree that the virus originated in China. But Beijing\u2019s authoritarian government hid information about its origins, spread, and severity for weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Such duplicity only fanned the fears of a global plague \u2014 a hysteria not seen since the groundless fears of a Y2K global computer meltdown in the year 2000, or the political feeding frenzy during the Hurricane Katrina relief effort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Wild speculation followed that the coronavirus was a virulent or mutated superbug. Had it arisen naturally or escaped from a nearby military lab? Did it originate from a sick lab animal? A conspiracy theory arose that it was a manufactured virus that had escaped from scientists\u2019 botched efforts to create either a vaccine or a biological weapon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Is the outbreak an indication that China\u2019s scientists are well behind their Western peers, at least in the areas of virology and bacteriology? Or is the problem that Chinese culture still features outdated traditions such as open-air \u201cwet markets\u201d? Unfounded rumors spread that the virus may have originated in one of these markets, where exotic mammals such as bats and pangolins are still sold for human consumption. For all China\u2019s gleaming high-speed-rail lines and new airports, hundreds of millions of Chinese still live in places with suspect food safety and waste disposal \u2014 the historic incubators of epidemics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nationalreview.com\/2020\/03\/coronavirus-what-we-dont-know-is-what-scares-us\/\">Read the full article here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review The&nbsp;recent spread of the coronavirus is causing a global panic. Our shared terror arises not so much from the death toll of the new flu-like disease \u2014 more than 3,000 people have died worldwide \u2014 but from what we don\u2019t know about it. Experts at least agree that the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-3bo","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":12412,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/strategika-issue-64\/","url_meta":{"origin":12238,"position":0},"title":"Strategika Issue #64","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 4, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"The Coronacrisis Will Simply Exacerbate the Geo-strategic Competition between Beijing and Washington Please read a new essay by my colleague, Michael R. Austin\u00a0in Strategika. Even before the outbreak of the novel coronavirus in Wuhan, China late last year, the Sino-U.S. relationship had been in a period of flux. Since coming\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12519,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/coronavirus-and-the-great-lockdown-a-non-biological-black-swan\/","url_meta":{"origin":12238,"position":1},"title":"Coronavirus and the Great Lockdown: A Non-Biological Black Swan","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 5, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"The following article is from my colleague, Paul Roderick Gregory, in Real\u00a0Clear\u00a0Markets We stand on the precipice of\u00a0\u00a0the greatest economic disaster since the Great Depression. It is associated with the exogenous shock of\u00a0\u00a0a novel Coronavirus that originated in Wuhan China and quickly spread into a worldwide pandemic. The sequence of\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12291,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/america-is-still-a-global-leader\/","url_meta":{"origin":12238,"position":2},"title":"America Is Still a Global Leader","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 4, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review A current global myth alleges that America under the Trump administration is not leading the world fight against the coronavirus in its accustomed role as the post-war global leader. Yet the U.S. was the first major nation to issue a travel ban on flights\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12759,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/strategika-69-china-and-the-pandemic\/","url_meta":{"origin":12238,"position":3},"title":"Strategika #69: China and the Pandemic","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 15, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Remedies For China\u2019s Role In The Pandemic Please read a new essay by my colleague, John Yoo in Strategika. The more we learn about the origins of the coronavirus, the more the case against China grows. Chinese doctors and scientists encountered COVID-19 patients as early as November 2019, but Beijing\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12319,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/suppression-of-expression-obscures-the-truth-about-the-virus\/","url_meta":{"origin":12238,"position":4},"title":"Suppression of Expression Obscures the Truth About the Virus","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 21, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ American Greatness Americans are acquainted with predictable but ultimately failed progressive efforts to suppress free expression by preemptive invective and politically correct finger-pointing. To believe that U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh\u2019s accusers revealed too many contradictions, too many lacunae, too many episodes of timely amnesia,\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12250,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/america-in-a-new-upside-down-world\/","url_meta":{"origin":12238,"position":5},"title":"America In a New Upside-Down World","author":"victorhanson","date":"March 17, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ American Greatness The world is changing at a pace not seen in years, and it is no time to become captives of fear despite the real and immediate dangers we face. The coronavirus and the ensuing panic, at least for a few more weeks, have stagnated\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12238"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12238"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12238\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12240,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12238\/revisions\/12240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}