‘Danger of panic still far exceeds danger of coronavirus,’ Elon Musk says

On March 12, we wrote a story about Dr. Shiva, a Biologist with four PHD degrees from MIT. He expressed his concerns about the coronovirus and how the media has exaggerated the coronavirus outbreak to scare millions of Americans. The story quickly went viral with over two million views in just four days. Dr. Shiva said the fear mongering on coronavirus will go down as biggest fraud to manipulate economies.

Then yesterday, Prof. Jihad Bishara, a leading Israeli virologist and director of the infectious diseases unit at Rabin Medical Center, Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikva, Israel, slams ‘unnecessary and exaggerated panic’ about coronavirus and urges world leaders to calm public.

Now, Tesla and SpaceX CEO is joining the chorus. In a series of tweets where he said chloroquine may be worth considering as treatment for the treatment of coronavirus, Musk went on to say: “That said, danger of panic still far exceeds danger of corona imo. If we over-allocate medical resources to corona, it will come at expense of treating other illnesses. Track graph at bottom of this page:”

That said, danger of panic still far exceeds danger of corona imo. If we over-allocate medical resources to corona, it will come at expense of treating other illnesses. Track graph at bottom of this page: https://t.co/7nWKjiZyFn

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 17, 2020

Elon Musk is right. While the media is so focused on the vaccine race, which is about 12 to 24 months away, focusing more on other solutions such as therapeutics and other existing anti-malaria drugs may provide the much needed relief and allay public fear and panic about the deadly coronavirus.