We are trying to figure out where the legs grow from in a panic around a new disease.
Why has the coronavirus hit our imaginations so hard? This is a mystery to which there is no answer. For four months in the world about 10 thousand people died from coronavirus (data as of the morning of March 20). But people tend to die. In the entire history of mankind, only one case is known that made many doubt the inevitability of this rule, but this precedent, which took place in Jerusalem 2,000 years ago, is still the subject of heated debate. Therefore, it will most likely not work to evade the prepared lot. But why, following the barman Sokov from The Master and Margarita, we strive out of the blue to invent the binomial of Newton, taking an interest in the issues of life and death? What makes you think that the name of the horseman of the apocalypse is Coronavirus? First, let's count. We of coursewe will not be able to answer the question of what and when will you die with Koroviev's cynical frankness. But statistics will nevertheless help clarify the question: what in the world actually most threatens people's lives? And with what tools does an elderly lady with a scythe collect the most abundant harvest (spoiler alert - coronavirus is not her favorite weapon)?
1. Hunger (9 million victims)
In Russia, the last time a real famine came to collectivization (apart from the war and post-war years). Therefore, we can pretend that this does not concern us now. Because 98 percent of the hungry live in developing countries. And all civilized humanity is waging an irreconcilable war with another enemy - overweight. But, first, smart people do not recommend asking for whom the bell tolls. And secondly, in fact, a disaster is taking place near us. Bali, a popular Indonesian tourist resort (including among Russians), is located in a region where a total of 520 million people are undernourished. And next to Egypt, on the beaches of which about 2 million Russians rested every year, are Sudan, Ethiopia, Niger and other countries, where 243 million people go hungry.
According to experts from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 9 million people die from hunger and related diseases every year. Another shocking figure is cited by the respected medical journal The Lancet: malnutrition is the cause of 3.5 million deaths in children aged 1 to 5 years. At the same time, in general, humanity produces so much food that there is enough of it for everyone. But in rich countries, up to a third of food is thrown into the trash. Now tell me, when was the last time you felt anxiety about people starving to death while you were watching a TV show? But this is a much more terrible and tangible tragedy than the abstract threat of the coronavirus, which forced many to put on masks, refuse to shake hands, and go into quarantine. Although we have no epidemic. At least for the moment.
2. Green serpent (3 million victims)
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But this topic is already geographically and spiritually closer to us. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 3 million people die from alcohol in the world every year. This means that 5.3% of deaths in the world are directly related to binge drinking. The green serpent claims more lives than HIV, tuberculosis and military conflicts. We are among the leaders in this sad statistics. In Russia and the CIS countries, approximately one in five deaths is somehow related to alcohol (WHO includes accidents, murders and suicides committed while drunk in these statistics). Rospotrebnadzor calls other figures, according to the department, alcohol killed 48 thousand Russians in 2018. But these are only those cases where alcohol is indicated in the documents as the cause of death. If we responded to these numbers as we did to the hypothetical coronavirus threat,then it is high time for the country to introduce a state of emergency and a curfew.
3. Traffic accidents (1.35 million victims)
In 2016, the number of fatalities in road traffic accidents ranked eighth in the Top 10 causes of death according to the World Health Organization. About 3700 motorists, motorcyclists, cyclists, pedestrians die every day in the world … Traffic accidents are the main reason why children and young people aged 5-29 die. According to the traffic police in 2019, 16.9 thousand people became victims of road accidents in Russia. But a recent attempt to lift the 20 km / h free speed limit has met with strong public outrage. Who is right here is another question. But the real threat doesn't stop people from at least discussing arguments and weighing priorities.
In 2016, the number of fatalities in road traffic accidents ranked eighth in the Top 10 causes of death according to the World Health Organization.
4. Take your own life (0.8 million victims)
The figures show that a person in the world does not live very comfortably. Every year, doctors register from 10 to 20 million suicide attempts. In 2015, these assassination attempts led to the death of 828 thousand people. Suicide is on the list of the leading causes of death in the world (approximately 1.5 percent per year of the total). This problem is most acute in seemingly prosperous Lithuania. But South Korea is on the heels of the Balts. Russia is also among the disadvantaged countries. Has this knowledge made us feel better about each other? It's simple - you don't even need to wash your hands with an antiseptic, it's enough to deny yourself the pleasure of poisoning your neighbor. But it is imperceptible that the whole country in a single impulse was tormented on this topic.
5. Mosquitoes (0.7 million victims)
This is the worst beast on Earth. From the bites of the booger, which carries diseases such as encephalitis, fever, malaria, etc. about 700 thousand people die every year. For comparison, 500 thousand people become victims of criminal murders on the planet. Snake bites kill 50 thousand people, and on the conscience of white sharks, the main "movie villains" of the animal world, in reality, no more than a dozen eaten swimmers a year.
It is no coincidence that the richest man on the planet, Bill Gates, declared the mosquito his personal enemy. The creator of Microsoft has invested $ 4 million in the creation of genetically modified mosquitoes. They themselves do not bite a person, and they will pass on a gene to their wild relatives that will not allow them to live to puberty, when females need blood to give offspring (males do not bite anyone).
Why do people like to wait for the end of the world
We met five sinister killers for whom the coronavirus does not hold a candle. But people don't really want to know about them. At the same time, they are fascinated by everything related to the new disease, although the mortality rate from coronavirus is an order of magnitude lower than that of bird flu. This discrepancy between the real danger of a phenomenon and the attention that people pay to it was studied by a group of scientists led by Max Roser of the University of Oxford. They researched media coverage of the phenomenon of terrorism. Scientists have calculated that over the past decade, an average of 21 thousand people per year were killed by terrorists (minimum - 8 thousand in 2010, maximum - 44 thousand in 2014). On the conscience of terrorists 0.05% of deaths in the world (this is the data of 2017, when a total of 56 million died). But the number of publications in the media was incomparable with the contribution of terrorists to the increase in mortality. Then scientists compared three indicators: from what we die; how intensively we search the Internet for information on various causes of death; and how often it is reported in leading American and British publications (New York Times and The Guardian). An interesting picture turned out:
- 30.2 percent of people die from heart disease. But only 2% of people turn to Google with search queries on this topic. And about the same share of news in the media (2.3%) is devoted to it.
- About 29.5% of people die from cancer. But oncology gives 37% of search queries (people are afraid of it). The media devote 12-13% of their stories to cancer.
- The most striking disparities related to violent deaths: suicide, homicide and terrorism. These topics accounted for about 23% of searches. And the media wrote about it in 70% of the materials.
Scientists concluded that the information picture does not reflect the real state of affairs. But the peculiarities of information consumption are to blame for this. People appreciate the "preventive effect" of news - something that allows them to avoid death. When assessing threats, they more often proceed from emotional circumstances than from rational ones (dying from cancer seems worse than from heart disease, and becoming a victim of a terrorist attack - even more so). The media, in turn, depend on the interests of their consumers, as a result, both of them fall into a mutually reinforcing cycle. Probably, the "rookie effect" helped to unroll the coronavirus. This is a new exotic threat, the danger of which is completely incomprehensible to the average citizen. So the reader wants to know more about this in order to protect himself. The media, in turn, satisfy this interest and earn money on it with all their might. But soon the phase of reflection will come and the coronavirus will take its place among the swine flu, Ebola, SARS and other common misfortunes that frightened us quite recently. And people will look forward to the new end of the world.
YAROSLAV KOROBATOV
