Where does the coronavirus panic lead? To a shuttered cabin aboard a cruise ship off the coast of California. We were warned.
If you want to know where public panics such as coronavirus lead, look at a cruise ship cabin occupied by Harry and Karen Dever of Moorestown, New Jersey.
The Devers and 3,000 passengers and crew are stranded on the Grand Princess, a vacation vessel bound for Mexico but was locked down a week ago and was still idly floating off the coast of California this week. An order restricted everyone to their cabins after it was determined that someone on a prior sailing had cue scary movie music coronavirus!
The ship took a sharp left.
I thought maybe there was a storm, Mrs. Dever told our reporter, but the captain announced there had been coronavirus on the previous cruise, and so they decided not to go to (Mexico) and head back to San Francisco.
Karen Dever, her vacation ruined, said its an overreaction. Things arent much better on land. Daily life is increasingly interrupted by the panic. Duke and UCLA, for example, have closed campuses, fearing the virus.
Its not just college administrators protecting their delicate charges whose minds are affected by the panic. Last Saturday, I met a friend for breakfast, and he rapidly pulled back when I went to shake his hand. Handshakes = sickness and death.
Coronavirus, he said.
At Mass, only fearless souls shook hands at the Sign of Peace. The man behind me recoiled when I offered my handshake. It was as if I was trying to shove a rattlesnake at him.
This week, word came by phone from the Bucks County Technical High School, where my kids go, that one of techs feeder high schools, Neshaminy, would be closed Tuesday to be sanitized.
Coronavirus, said the recorded message to parents.
I walked into a drug store in Levittown and overheard a woman asking the cashier for facemasks a faddish, somewhat ineffective coronavirus prophylactic and she was told the store was out, that theyd be restocked in a week.
All of this happened prior to Bucks and Montgomery counties announcing several presumptive positive cases of coronavirus.
Look, take reasonable precautions. But if you are under 60 and are in good health, the only thing coronavirus is going to kill are the gains you made in the market this year.
Not since the early days after 9/11, when panicky locals stockpiled plastic drop cloths to seal windows and doors anticipating terrorist anthrax attacks (remember that?), has overreaction to an unlikely mortal threat been so overblown.
Every account of this bug, when its based on science and explained by responsible physicians, has said coronavirus is a mild illness, so mild that some people dont even know they have it. Worldwide, about 4,000 deaths are linked to coronavirus. Thats peanuts compared to the regular flu, which has killed nearly 20,000 Americans since October. When flu season ends later this spring, some 30,000 Americans will be dead from the flu, about the population of Lower Makefield or Norristown.
So far, coronavirus has not killed any children in the U.S., but this years ordinary flu, now ravaging the U.S., has killed 136 kids. As far as I know, no local school district has (or ever has) burned a day to close its facilities to sanitize the joint.
Why are so many of us leery about coronavirus, from which so few will perish? Granted, the panic isnt full-blown, with people running in the streets screaming, The end is near! as they would if, say, Bernie Sanders is elected president.
Its a latent panic, an irrational dread stoked by 24/7 scare stories. The effects are seen in every abrupt pullback from a handshake, rejected hug or dodged peck on the cheek.
Decades ago we were warned that the table was set in America for the fetid reasoning that emanates from dystopian imaginations.
In 1987, philosopher Allan Bloom explained in The Closing of the American Mind how higher education, with its idolatry of moral relativism, short-circuits critical thinking skills in young Americans. Among the threats is that shallow minds are easily led by conniving authoritarians passing as credentialed experts.
Since Blooms book, the American mind has been softened by an absence of classic, replaced with a steady diet of dystopian novels and entertainment aimed largely at young adults. This has been larded with saturation news of Ebola, SARS, H1N1, Zika and other hysterias. Mix in End Times harangues from climate change catastrophists and socialist Green New Dealers, fold in dire warnings of the fake existential threat of Donald Trump, and the enfeebled mind turns soft as a snowflake.
Closed minds dwell in a dystopian world as dark and hopeless as The Hunger Games.
If we dont change this, each of us will end up like the Devers of South Jersey, forced into a tiny, shuttered cabin until credentialed authoritarians decide we can come out.
Columnist JD Mullane can be reached at 215-949-5745 or at jmullane@couriertimes.com.
More here:
Mullane: Coronavirus and the dystopian American mind - Opinion - Bucks County Courier Times
- Best Horror Movies Of 2024 (So Far) - Time Out - May 20th, 2024
- The Best Horror Movies If You Loved The Strangers - CBR - May 20th, 2024
- The Smartest Horror Movie Heroes, Ranked - CBR - May 20th, 2024
- 15 Horror Movies So Controversial They Got Banned - CBR - May 20th, 2024
- Before 'Psycho,' This Is The Twisty Horror Thriller Hitchcock Wanted to Make - Collider - May 20th, 2024
- 10 Most Rewatchable Horror Movie From Each Year of the 2010s - Collider - May 20th, 2024
- Jaws and Hitchcock's Psycho inspired new horror movie The Strangers: Chapter 1, as director explains its lack of gore - Gamesradar - May 20th, 2024
- The monsters that made me: Growing up disabled, all of my heroes were villains - Polygon - May 20th, 2024
- Shocking Horror Movie The Coffee Table Is Earning Raves From Stephen King. Its Director Wants Audiences to Suffer and Hate Me - Variety - May 20th, 2024
- Netflix fans freak out over 'insanely scary' horror film that found its way into the top 10 - Daily Mail - May 20th, 2024
- 10 Best So-Bad-They're-Good Horror Movies of the '90s, Ranked - Collider - May 20th, 2024
- Making Sense of I Saw The TV Glow's Tragic and Terrifying Ending - TIME - May 20th, 2024
- New Horror Movie With 21% RT Score Nearly Triples Budget At The Box Office In Just 10 Days - Screen Rant - May 20th, 2024
- Sting director says he's "kind of remaking Alien" with the giant spider horror movie - Gamesradar - May 20th, 2024
- How Scary Is The Strangers: Chapter 1? It's R-Rating Explained - Screen Rant - May 20th, 2024
- New Upcoming Horror Movie Gives Five Nights At Freddy's 2 Its Biggest Rival After $291 Million Success - Screen Rant - May 20th, 2024
- 10 Impossible Horror Movie Kills (and the Visual Effects Behind Them) - CBR - May 20th, 2024
- 10 Most Satisfying Horror Movie Reveals - WhatCulture - May 20th, 2024
- Stephen King Reviews Horror Movie With 88% RT Score: "You Have Never Seen A Movie As Black As This" - Screen Rant - May 20th, 2024
- Wolf Man Producer Reveals If the Horror Movie Is Part of Universal's Dark Universe Franchise - CBR - May 20th, 2024
- Nicolas Cage is set to take on another horror movie, this time about Jesus? - Gamesradar - May 9th, 2024
- Horror Tips from Director Jeff Wadlow and the Set of 'Imaginary' - No Film School - May 9th, 2024
- Upcoming horror movie amps up its marketing by having crazed killers pop up all over the nation - Gamesradar - May 9th, 2024
- This Upcoming Horror Movie Is The Best Chance Of 2024 Beating Five Night's At Freddy's Box Office - Screen Rant - May 9th, 2024
- Abigail Lands on Digital Platforms 2 Weeks After Theater Release: How to Stream the Horror Movie Online - Billboard - May 9th, 2024
- Stephen King Praises 'Scary' and 'Gross' Horror Movie With Near-Perfect Reviews - CBR - May 9th, 2024
- 'Mind Body Spirit' Review: A Horror Movie That Puts a Yoga Twist on 'Hereditary' - Collider - May 9th, 2024
- Nicolas Cage Is Taking on a New Horror Movie of Biblical Proportions - Collider - May 9th, 2024
- Daylight horror: 12 movies that are still scary with the lights on - The A.V. Club - May 9th, 2024
- How To Watch Tarot: Is the Horror Movie Streaming or in Theaters? - TheWrap - May 9th, 2024
- Mind Body Spirit Review: A Found Footage Horror Film With Something To Say About The Influencer Age - Screen Rant - May 9th, 2024
- This Unexpectedly Great Horror Movie Reboot With 80% On Rotten Tomatoes Is Now Streaming & I Wish I Saw It In ... - Screen Rant - May 9th, 2024
- The horror movie so realistic its director was arrested for murder - JOE.ie - May 9th, 2024
- 'Tarot' Scares Up a Bleak Weekend at the Global Box Office - Collider - May 9th, 2024
- Insane 2024 horror movie with a twist hits 95% on Rotten Tomatoes - Dexerto - May 9th, 2024
- 10 of the Most Disturbing 2024 Horror Movies You (Probably) Haven't Heard Of - Dread Central - May 9th, 2024
- EXPOSURE: This Short Film Will Make You Want To Throw Your Security Cameras In A Dumpster - FANGORIA - May 9th, 2024
- 5 New Horror Movies Releasing This Week Including 'Abigail' at Home - Bloody Disgusting - May 9th, 2024
- The Best Horror Movies Streaming This Month Will Make Your Skin Crawl (May 2024) - SlashFilm - May 9th, 2024
- This Surreal Horror Movie on Max Is One of the Most Influential Films Ever - Collider - May 9th, 2024
- The 30 best classic horror movies of all time - Entertainment Weekly News - March 16th, 2024
- The 23rd Spring, Is Jeepers Creepers Coming Back To Michigan? - 102.5/104.9 The Block - March 16th, 2024
- Winnie The Pooh Horror Movie Dominates The Razzie Awards - 106.3 The Groove - March 16th, 2024
- This Underrated Blumhouse Horror Movie Is Unlike Any Other Creature Feature - Collider - March 16th, 2024
- 13 Horror Movies Where Everyone Dies by the End - MovieWeb - March 8th, 2024
- Willy Wonka Experience Villain The Unknown Gets Its Own Horror Movie - TMZ - March 8th, 2024
- The 13 Scariest Horror Movies Streaming on Peacock: Alien, Leprechaun, The Exorcist: Believer and More - Syfy - March 8th, 2024
- Every Horror Movie Releasing in March 2024 - MovieWeb - March 8th, 2024
- 10 Scariest Movies That Have Won Oscars - Collider - March 8th, 2024
- The 10 Best New Horror Movies To Watch in March 2024 - Collider - March 8th, 2024
- Horror Movie Based on Viral Willy Wonka Experience Coming Soon - Bloody Disgusting - March 8th, 2024
- Where To Watch Imaginary: Showtimes & Streaming Status - Screen Rant - March 8th, 2024
- Immaculate: Eveything You Need to Know About Sydney Sweeney's Upcoming Horror Movie That Will Give You ... - FandomWire - March 8th, 2024
- The 20 best horror movies on Peacock - Entertainment Weekly News - March 8th, 2024
- Horror Movie Based on the Willy Wonka Experience Villain, The Unknown, Now in the Works - MovieWeb - March 8th, 2024
- Melissa Barrera's Scream 7 Replacement Actually Sounds Better Than Fighting Ghostface Again - Screen Rant - March 8th, 2024
- 'Shaitaan' Movie 2024 Filming Locations: Shooting Spots Of The Horror Flick - TRAVEL + LEISURE INDIA - March 8th, 2024
- The Horror Movie Franchise With the Most Sequels Ever Is One You've Never Heard of - Collider - March 8th, 2024
- Jimmy Fallon asked people to ruin a horror movie by adding a single word to its title - Upworthy - March 8th, 2024
- The Absolute Best Horror Movies on Hulu - CNET - March 8th, 2024
- Willy Wonka Experience creepy character 'The Unknown' handed role in new horror movie - The Mirror - March 8th, 2024
- The Best Sea Monster Movies, Ranked - Screen Rant - February 28th, 2024
- The Borderlands Movie's Scary Behind The Scenes Drama That Has Us Worried - Screen Rant - February 28th, 2024
- Netflix Just Quietly Added the Best Holiday Thriller of the Decade - Inverse - February 28th, 2024
- The 20 best scary movies streaming right now - Entertainment Weekly News - February 19th, 2024
- Best Horror Movies of 2024 Ranked - New Scary Movies to Watch - Rotten Tomatoes - February 19th, 2024
- 'Only Murders in the Building' Adds Molly Shannon to Season 4 Cast - Yahoo Eurosport UK - February 19th, 2024
- Why Lindsay Lohan Refused to Kiss Charlie Sheen in "Scary Movie 5" - Best Life - February 19th, 2024
- 15 Best Scary Movies To Stream - Screen Rant - February 11th, 2024
- Eight Skin-Crawling Scary Films That Don't Have Any Jump Scares In Them - Digg - February 11th, 2024
- David Cronenberg names some of the scariest movies ever - Far Out Magazine - February 11th, 2024
- 12 Horror Movies That Will Give You the Biggest Jump Scares - Collider - February 3rd, 2024
- TAROT's Trailer Brings the Iconic Cards to Life and Things Get Weird - Nerdist - February 3rd, 2024
- Review: Baghead - Is the Movie as Scary as it Looks? - Blazing Minds - February 3rd, 2024
- Natasha Lyonne Says James Woods Hit On Her As A Teenager While Filming Scary Movie 2 - 106.3 The Groove - February 3rd, 2024
- The Witcher's Freya Allan explains the challenges of filming her first horror movie Baghead: "You have to surrender ... - Gamesradar - January 26th, 2024
- The 5 Best Uses of Popcorn in Scary Movies - Dread Central - January 26th, 2024
- 5 Horror Films That Transformed The Genre - Study Finds - January 26th, 2024
- Kristen Stewart Wants to Star in Another Horror Movie in the Future - ComingSoon.net - January 26th, 2024
- Best Home Invasion Movies of All Time, Ranked - MovieWeb - January 26th, 2024
Reviewed and Recommended by Erik Baquero