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Conclusion
Identifying cognitive errors and logical fallacies let us better understand the situation and draw
somewhat shocking conclusion.
There is no doubt that the new virus poses a big risk to the elderly. The increase in cases of
severe pneumonia is undeniable. In some regions of the world, the ensuing diseases make hospitals
work at capacity.
Nevertheless the direct global effects of the new disease are comparable to the effects of a
seasonal flu. The truly harmful outcome and the crisis situation come from the public and the
authorities unprecedented amount of attention to it and the resulting decisions. More damage to
public health has been done by unnecessary focus and overreaction than by the disease itself.
No matter how strong we are going to resist this dreary conclusion, the evidence is overwhelm-
ing. We brought the civilization to a halt solely because of the lack of evidence-based rational
evaluation.
As a society, with regard to critical thinking, we are still Mesoamerican Aztecs, who discovered
that solar eclipse leads to mass killings. Unfortunately, instead of replacing fearmongering priests
to cease the rampage, we resort to space engineering to stop the moon from rotating, so that eclipse
does not happen again.
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