Maybe these are inconvenient truths?
1. Rambly/poetic 2. Doesn't really cite any sources or provide new information
But billions of people will suffer before this blows over.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/how-long-will-it-ta...
People are panicking because there's no cure and they think there's a small but negligible chance they might die if they get it.
The virus is structurally quite simple. There are antibodies known from the previous SARS epidemic that are predicted via simulation to bind to the spike proteins very well indeed. I did some research over the past few days into how quickly you can make antibody serums and, well, it's a lot faster than you can make vaccines, especially if you aren't trying to manufacture huge quantities. At least one biotech firm claims to be right on the cusp of manufacturing antigens, which are a key ingredient in the (mass) production of antibodies.
Very few people get COVID-19 so badly they'd need to be given an external cure. With the containment efforts, it's possible you don't need huge factories producing antibodies to be able to cure the worst affected cases, and it's possible that the news of availability of a cure would itself be sufficient to largely end the panic. If COVID-19 becomes just "a bad flu that can be cured at your local hospital in the unlikely case it gets worse" then we might see a reset to normalcy very fast.
All the other ones were largely human caused and largely controlled by sentiment, and did not cause everyone around the world to avoid contact with everyone else.
This will last until a vaccine is developed which might take 12-18 months and in the meantime many many businesses will die around the world.
The domino effects will be huge. Remember that lots of people and companies are up to their eyeballs in debt, what if that starts to run out of control with bad debt everywhere cause businesses and people are bankrupt?
This is very long term and very damaging to all economies and there’s not really much governments can do to change people’s behaviour.
This one is caused by sentiment, but that sentiment is driven by a virus which is out of human control. Unlike for example a war, which can be controlled by politicians.
Thar’s a big one blowin in, batten down the hatches.