The current global panic in reaction to the emergence of a fairly mild new virus is wholly unjustified and amounts to mass hysteria, says the Federation of International Employers or FedEE.
In a statement seen by CRN, the FedEE says mass hysteria is the thing people should fear, but not a just another cold-like virus.
FedEE calls on the governments around the world to be containing the hysteria, not encouraging it.
‘There is no evidence that the 2019-nCoV poses any greater threat to those who catch it than many forms of the flu virus. The mortality rate in China is around 2% – and appears to remain constantly within a narrow confidence interval around that rate. This does not make it a serious threat to human life’ FedEE argues.
It says the source of the virus is said to be a market in Wuhan that sold wild animals.
FedEE says ‘The handling of the outbreak and its communication has led to prejudice rather than sympathy towards virus sufferers and those suspected and in some cases, deep infringements of human rights’.
It has also stoked xenophobia/ethic discrimination against those of Chinese origin living outside China. There has been little action by state authorities to curb this problem.