It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

"It's been a tough year this week."

That was just one of several amusing memes that showed up in my Facebook feed last week. What was the funniest?

Credit Unknown.

Fear and panic over just the idea of the newest form of the coronavirus, named COVID-19, have shut down countries and sent Americans into a panic. Are you familiar with the old movie, "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World?" According to the description on IMDB, it's about, "a group of motorists (who) hear about a crook's hidden stash of loot, and race against each other across the country to get to it."

Over the past few weeks, it's been a mad, mad, mad crazy mad world, but instead of hidden loot, Americans have been racing from one store to the next to stock up on hand sanitizer and toilet paper.

Yes, that’s right. Toilet paper. For a respiratory illness.

I think the driving force behind that odd choice was the fear that we'll be told to quarantine at home as residents in Italy were forced to do, but that was never said outright. And yet, panicky people flooded stores, emptying shelves of paper products and soap (seems few were washing their hands up to this point, and everyone felt they oughtta start.) It didn't help that after the first wave of hoarders did their damage, schools closed, colleges switched to online classes, airlines were asked to curtail their flights and Americans were urged to "socially distance" ourselves from one another and to cancel all gatherings of over 100 attendees, then 50 attendees, and then 10 attendees--all within a week's time. Woo doggie, that sent everybody back to the stores. This time, they grabbed cereal, sugar, chicken, potatoes, rice--lots of rice--beans, and milk. Oddly, the coffee and canned goods sections were still full at our stores, as was the wine section. It's been a form of chaos that would even befuddle the likes of Ian Malcolm.

Seriously, we didn't see this level of fear and reaction during the Ebola crisis a few years back, and Ebola turns ones insides to liquid and makes them bleed from the eyes.

We keep hearing talk of "flattening the curve." While I can appreciate the desire to stop the further spread of this virus, I would have preferred that we take the same measures we did during the aforementioned Ebola threat and the 2009 H1N1 crisis, which I didn’t even know was a pandemic until now. Ebola was stopped in its tracks. The numbers for the flu pandemic? According to the CDC:

(The) final estimates were that from April 12, 2009 to April 10, 2010 approximately 60.8 million cases (range: 43.3-89.3 million), 274,304 hospitalizations (195,086-402,719), and 12,469 deaths (8868-18,306) occurred in the United States due to pH1N1.

Granted, that’s far too many, just as the 20,000 plus flu deaths so far this season are too many. What precautions were taken for both influenza events? Not many beyond being told to get a flu shot. More measures should have been taken, but society didn’t shut down. Countries and churches didn’t close. The stock market didn’t tank. People didn’t flip out and stock up on toilet paper as if it were a crook’s hidden treasure.

So why now and not then? Many of us are asking that question. We don’t understand the events that, in a short amount of time, turned this into a mad, mad, mad, mad world.

Christian, I’m not worried. You shouldn’t be either. Instead, be a light in the darkness during this time. With your faith anchored in Christ, check on the elderly, encourage others, be humorous, stay home if you’re sick or have been exposed to any illness, and show the world the salvation and peace of Christ.