In time of crisis

When you walk into a random supermarket, you find toilet is paper gone, most of the emergency food is gone. You know that it has eventually came to you--- the corona outbreak. 

Needless to emphasise how serious the situation is. The number of patient is experiencing expotential growth, schools are shutting down. Maybe it is getting better in Asian countries, but it just start blooming in Europe. 

I can still remember one weeks ago (or maybe two), when the corona was not an issue in the netherlands, people were still chilling and passing information that " this is just another flu". Even when the outbreak has been officially decleared by dutch government, the reaction from people are very much polarized: some still believe it is a "flu" and refuse to aviod gathering and partying, some become hyper paranoid and try every possible measure to keep themselves safe---Some bars are still noisy, but some people trying to keep safe distance (3-4m) with evryone else surronding. And this is indeed a very ironic sene to see.  

But ing I do not mean to criticize any of these behaviour. I mean, if people do not know what to do, they will naturally follow what other people are doing. When I see other people are carrying tones of toliet paper, I cannot keep myself calm anymore. The moment when I ran to several supermarkets and finally bought toilet paper, I somehow feel safer, even though my biological side tells me it does not make any sense. I can see this " threater effect" happening on the daily basis, nobody, including people who have knowledge on dealing with virus, can escape from the fear that incentivized by our natural instinct. However, the consequense of " threater effect" is always devastating, as when everyone is trying to act in a way that maximizing their own benefit, they will naturally act in a way that harming others benefit and rights (over-purchasing toilet paper/ masks). And sometimes, it may even fuels the hates towards others who live in the same society. Xenophobia in the time of virus outbreak might be the most vivid example of this point. 

It is understandable that people are afriad of something that is unknown, but it is not an excuse to let it spread without taking any measure. In the senario of threater effect, the adsence of threater manager lead to the "race". Same thing goes to corona, governments, with no exception, choose to act when it is too late to keep it under control. When the fire does not burn to their boarder, they though they would somehow doge the situation. And I feel such navie behaviour is often seen in Western countries. They thought the boarder control/ social distanc control in Asia is against  "freedom of individual", but now they try to reach singapore/taiwan to learn how they make the information transparent and impose restriction on individuals. Until the momemt they suffer, they know it is not an "Asian flu' any more, but something we all have to fight together. 

It does not matter what kinds of measurement to take, what matters to me the most is the trasparancy of the information. For instance, Singaporean government tries to explain the current situation ( numbers of infection, symptom, measurements) in four languages to all the residence. I am not expecting the government to tell everything, but at least, let me know what is going on, how does the symptom looks like, what is the general advice to keep yourself safe. In time of crisis, I do not want to feel safe by storing toilet paper, I want to feel safe by hearing more related information and guidence.  Please stop let people deciding based on their own instinct, because we all know it will lead to a really really bad consequence. 

In time of crisis, we all have to trust each other, but not starting a fight and end up in a misery.