Covid-19 crisis Irrational thinking
Someone expressed a view that covid-19 is dangerous because his friend has a family member who died from the disease. 

This is irrational thinking.

My father died from pneumonia. My mother died from cancer. Pneumonia and cancer are also dangerous diseases. We do not need to over-react to these diseases just because a family member died from it.

We only need to worry about a disease when there are a large number of people who died from it.

Furthermore, we must look at the numbers of deaths from covid, compared to deaths from other diseases. Is it an overwhelming large number?

America has reported 120,000 deaths. This number does appear to be large for a disease. 

However, some people suspected that this number is exaggerated. The American government pays the hospital $39,000 for a patient that is treated on a ventilator, $19,000 for treating a covid patient  and $5,000 for treating a flu patient.

Some people suspected that the hospital pressure the doctor to certify the cause of death to be covid, to enjoy a larger payment.

I do not know if this kind of financial incentive also exists in other countries that could lead to an exaggeration in the number of deaths.

I am quite certain that the 26 deaths reported in Singapore is extremely low. I consider it insane for the government to spend $95 billion in financial relief under the circuit breaker measures.

It is likely that the actual deaths could be higher than 26, as covid might be be a contributing factor to some other deaths not reported under this cause. But, even if the number is multiplied by a few times, it is still quite small.

I am not being complacent about the deaths. I am just applying my sense of proportion.

There are deaths from other causes, such as cancer, heart disease, mental health, accidents and suicides. 

We have to pay attention to all the causes of deaths, and do our best to reduce them. But we cannot apply too much resource on any one of them, to the exclusion of the others. We need a sense of proportion.

There is the argument that the deaths from covid could be much higher, if the circuit breaker measures were not taken. We do not know if this is or is not true. Maybe the sky would fall down as well, if we did not take the circuit breaker measures. 

I find our ministers to be insane in their approach towards dealing with this crisis. I find that many other people are also insane to a similar degree.

I hold a different view. Sadly, not many people agree with me. The insanity is quite widespread.

Tan Kin Lian
 

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