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COVID-19 is a petri dish for anxiety over health and finances

By Mike Zielinski, Host of The Mike Zielinski Show

Mar 03, 2020
Mike Zielinski

Of course we all harbor anxiety about the coronavirus, more officially known as COVID-19 for some reason known only to the folks in white coats.

The coronavirus has the world on edge, worrying if it will morph into a pandemic and sicken a big chunk of the population, some of them seriously and even fatally.

Not only that, the coronavirus is slamming the economy with a wrecking ball as anybody with investments in the stock market noticed last week. Stocks plunged atrociously and only God and perhaps Warren Buffet know if the freefall will continue unabated until the crisis plays out.

The coronavirus is strangling global supply lines, especially from the world’s biggest factory China, where the coronavirus came to life. There’s talk about medicines and many other vital products being unavailable and hospitals being overwhelmed.

If the coronavirus advances like a global prairie fire, there are fears that schools, factories, businesses, tourism and travel, airlines, entertainment venues and whatever will close down.

That obviously will strangle the economy and bring a harsh new reality to our lives. If we and/or our loved ones become infected with COVID-19, matters will become exponentially worse.

But before we toll Doomsday, the weather may save us. Perhaps.

Respiratory viruses like the flu dwindle in warmer weather.

With spring hopefully around the corner, infectious disease experts are hoping that holds true for COVID-19. But since this particular strain of coronavirus is novel, it’s too premature to tell.

Especially since researchers are scrambling to figure out how this damn disease survives and spreads.

SARS in 2003 and MERS in 2012 share some similarities with COVID-19 and both of them became increasingly inactive as temperatures and humidity rose.

Some researchers are hopeful that COVID-19 will pan out similarly and calm down by late spring. But considering that viruses can be maddeningly unpredictable, there’s no guarantee.

In the interim, the one-two punch of potentially dire consequences on our health and finances have all of us snared in a straitjacket of deep concern.

Granted, the world can be a cruel and foreboding place. But perspective is needed. We aren’t perched on the precipice of catastrophe at this time. One tiny sniffle that turns into a wheeze and worse won’t necessarily leave our universe in ashes and ruin.

Don’t start overdosing on Bob Dylan’s “Desolation Row” in front of the kids. Rather, keep the faith and pray for a spring hot enough to fry bacon on the West Shore Bypass.

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