When a Virus Goes ViralI’ve spent a good part of this evening scrolling through social media looking...

When a Virus Goes Viral

I’ve spent a good part of this evening scrolling through social media looking at hashtags related to Wuhan and the outbreak of the Coronavirus. I’ve been keeping a close eye on the story since the end of December and the escalation in cases, deaths, and media coverage in the last 24 hours has come as a shock.

I lived through SARS in Hong Kong in 2003 and the sense of alarm and fear I witnessed back then was chilling. Hong Kong basically became quiet. People were scared to take public transport and arguments would break out if someone coughed or sneezed near you. At the time I worked in a school and students simply stopped coming to class until finally the government cancelled classes until the virus was under control. We left Hong Kong for the heat of 3 weeks in Boracay. Everyone on the flight wore a mask.

That was all before social media. Now we have got full scale viral virus posts happening. We also have a much more mobile population in China. So what have I observed? Lots of factual observations about the spread of the virus, countries that have been effected and the efforts of the PRC to shut down cities and build a temp hospital in Wuhan.

There are lots of posts of crowded hospitals in Wuhan and increasingly videos of people collapsing in random places. Some tweets say ‘collapse’ others say ‘dropped dead.’ It is immediately notable how alarmist a few choice words in an unverified retweet can be. But eerily the images look a little like the intro to a zombie/apocalypse movie.

In with all of these posts are numerous videos of Chinese people eating bats in soup, live mice, and live frogs. These are curious because they all seem to be apportioning blame. Many of the videos are of spurious origin. But it is only a handful of videos and they seem to be gathering a fair amount of attention. They are also causing a stir as they impute a very crude stereotype about Chinese eating habits. Sensationalism and blame coalesce.

Then of course there are the memes. Already plenty deftly nodding to other pop culture elements. Some amusing, others straight up bad tastes, racist, and disrespectful to all those already in some way touched by the tragedy of the virus. Yet, the memes seem a good cultural barometer of how serious something is, or simply how viral it has become.

Lastly there are numerous conspiracy theorists out there. From the largely benign blame about exotic eating as the harbingner of the end of days, to PRC chemical warfare. Either of which help in any constructive way to mange and prepare for what is sure to be testing weeks ahead.

Let’s see how thing a progress both the virus and the viral.