Up until a couple of weeks ago, I was totally on your boat in thinking this was overblown. But the danger, at least to me, is less about mortality rates (which are astronomically higher than swine flu, let alone the common flu anyhow), and more the socio-economic impact.
Production in all work sectors is plummeting due to necessary precautions to prevent the spread of disease. The economy is set to face the biggest recession since the 2008 financial crisis, if not worse. Resources are being stockpiled to the point that providers can't keep up. People are publicly becoming more panicked and anxious as a result of everything going on, and are not attending school, work, cinemas or restaurants, let alone massive events with interactions between 100,000+ people like Wrestlemania.
I totally understand mass hysteria can do crazy things to people, but this is not "the flu". If anything, this is perhaps the worst global health crisis since the Spanish flu a century prior, which killed over twice as many people as World War 1 in half the amount of time. Add to that an increasingly globalised and interconnected world with travel between nations being readily available, and in many respects, it could be worse. Of course, it does not have the same mortality rates as Spanish flu, particularly within the youth, so it's not entirely a mirror image scenario, but this is undoubtedly the biggest health concern on a global scale since.
The important thing right now is ensuring we overcome this. There's plenty of cancellations and delays that have irritated me so far outside of the wrestling world, but they're necessary so as to ensure the public at large are safe and the virus causes less damage than it has the capability to if we were less cautious. What worries me more is how we respond to it. I understand wanting to downplay it to make people feel more secure and less panicked, but we need to acknowledge that the next 13-16 weeks will be tumultuous for pretty much everyone. My guess is that things cool down around late June-mid July period.
"We are not entitled to our opinions. We are entitled to our informed opinions." - Harlan Ellison (1934 - 2018)
https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/r...s-coronavirus/
Rudy Gobert making it a point to touch all the microphones looks incredibly stupid now
It's their event, it can happen whenever they want. I would be shocked if they didn't simply reschedule it for May or June. It's a one-off show, it can be moved rather than cancelled.
The thing about the Coronavirus isn't all cut and dry, at least not for me.
Personally, I get a little miffed when people just gloss over the fact that 48 people in the states have died from it. The last I heard, there were roughly 2,200 cases reported in the states so that's a mortality rate of about 2.2%. I know it's not a huge number but I doubt that the size of the statistic is important to the families of the people who've died from it. It's a serious issue whether we think so or not because the media and the politicians especially have made it into a serious issue. It's the people who're overreacting to it who're some of the biggest dangers; some are going on as though we're about to become a real life post-apocalyptic wasteland.
I have a feeling Tampa will cancel the event if WWE doesn't and WWE probably should. Why? Frankly, because it'll only serve as yet another big dent in the already thin armor of WWE's corporate face of being PC and progressive and all that kinda stuff. WWE's corporate face is different from the reality of how things are behind the scenes, that's long been known by fans but it's become more public knowledge the past several years due to the stories about backstage bullying not only happening but being encouraged, at times, by Vince, the scandalous reputation of the Fabulous Moolah coming to light and common knowledge even though WWE treated her as the patron saint of women's wrestling, the controversy of doing business with Saudi Arabia even though dozens of corporations bigger than WWE will ever hope to be have been doing it for decades, etc.. Even though I do think the media and politicians have blown the Coronavirus way out of proportion, that won't keep WWE from looking bad if they attempt to go ahead with the show and aren't the ones who decide to pull the plug instead of the Tampa city government.
Last edited by Jack-Hammer; 03-14-2020 at 10:24 AM.
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