Pandemic Discourse
Are doomsday scenarios being sold as science when really only fantasy is being discussed? This article criticizes pandemic communication and explains why viral recombinations don't automatically produce super-viruses.
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Researchers seem to enjoy fantasy and science fiction. But can they still distinguish between science and fiction?
For example, a German health minister – as well as a certain Dr. Drosten – has repeatedly expressed the fear that a virus could emerge that spreads as quickly as Omicron but is as dangerous as Delta. Sure, fine. In the realm of fantasy, that's certainly possible. The fact is that all Omicron subtypes – the currently dominant coronavirus variant – evolved to become milder in their course.
Masses bathed in fear psychosis seem currently receptive to every absurd idea imaginable. So the «coronavirus expert» Jeremy Farrar (who is he anyway?), a self-proclaimed mask wearer, wants to «prepare us for new pandemics». The newspaper writes: «Farrar's doomsday scenario: A combination of influenza – highly contagious – with H5N1 (avian flu), extremely deadly.»
Of course, he doesn't want to spread fear, but to educate us «realistically». Or so he claims.
But surely anyone can understand that a cross between Usain Bolt and Eliud Kipchoge wouldn't produce a superhuman who could suddenly sprint a marathon – biology has a term for that: trade-off. Perhaps a hybrid would emerge that's well-suited for an 800-meter run. But what are we even talking about? Because even if such a cross produced a human with enormous athletic potential, that doesn't mean the environmental factors necessary to make him a world-class athlete are actually present.
That is: Even if some recombination of particularly dangerous viruses with different properties existed, that wouldn't mean a super-dangerous virus would actually emerge, let alone spread and wipe out all of humanity.
How can a biologist or expert say such things? Irresponsible. Sometimes you wish the internet had never happened and newspapers remained in print. Then journalists would think twice before publishing something. And you often wish scientists would stick to their lab work instead of trying to convince the masses of their expertise via Twitter.
Because we want to point out one thing: Anyone who daily posts such doomsday scenarios or half-baked «scientific findings» (that will change again tomorrow) on these platforms – findings a layperson, 97.5% of people reading them, can't even interpret – creates fear, yes anxiety disorders. The concrete consequence: somatoform disorders, keyword psychoneuroimmunology.
So it is indeed a paradox of our time that people are supposed to be «protected» through the very channels that actually make them sick for the most part of the time. We don't even want to know how much the collective immune system has suffered over the last two or three years thanks to this form of communication – not to mention psychological terrorism.
It's particularly macabre against the backdrop that shortly before the pandemic began, a paper on exactly this topic was published that begins with these exact words:
Research from the past three to four decades has clearly demonstrated that psychological stress influences clinically relevant immune outcomes, including inflammation, wound healing, and responses to infectious agents and other immune challenges (e.g., vaccinations, autoimmunity, cancer).
Apparently unknown to our oh-so-clever opinion makers – or they simply don't care. Deadly.
