OPINION: Nathan Crabbe: Don't panic, but prepare for coronavirus

Feb. 28--Whenever a hurricane is projected to come anywhere close to Alachua County, panic tends to be the public response. Lines form at gas stations, grocery-store shelves are cleared of bottled water and flashlights are hard to find for sale anywhere.

The threat of the new coronavirus is triggering a similar reaction. As The Sun reported, local CVS Pharmacy locations have been selling out of protective face masks, despite no confirmed cases being reported yet in Florida.

A caller dialed me up Wednesday to criticize the media for inducing panic, claiming it was part of a conspiracy to tank the economy to defeat President Donald Trump in November. After all, the caller said, the mortality rate for the coronavirus is only 2%. That figure has been reported at the outbreak's center in China, although other reports suggest a higher rate.

Even if the figure is correct, it isn't exactly reassuring. The Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 -- which caused at least 50 million deaths worldwide -- had a mortality rate of about 2% as well. The mortality rate for the seasonal flu is typically only around 0.1%.

While panic is never a good idea, concern is definitely appropriate. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials said Tuesday to prepare for the likely spread of the coronavirus by planning for possible school closures and letting employees work from home.

I'm taking a much more modest step: not shaking hands with anyone for a while. Handshakes are well known for spreading germs -- with experts saying that fist bumps are a better way to greet people.

Fist bumps, however, haven't caught on as a handshake substitute. When Barack and Michelle Obama exchanged a fist bump back in 2008, they were even accused on Fox News of making a "terrorist fist jab."

Gainesville developer Ken McGurn is known for preferring fist bumps over handshakes, but that hasn't necessarily made them more widely used locally. At Wednesday's State of the City address, I stuck my fist out when greeting people and got some funny looks in the process.

We certainly aren't going to stop the spread of the coronavirus with fist bumps alone. We need robust public health programs and trustworthy information from the government, which has been in short supply when Trump is concerned. After days of downplaying the threat, Trump took to television Wednesday to declare he was putting Vice President Mike Pence in charge of the administration's response.

Anyone who thinks the media is rooting for a widespread U.S. outbreak -- or for our economy to tank -- is just wrong. No reasonable person wants to put themselves or their families at risk, or to see what happens if people get even more panicked.

-- Nathan Crabbe is The Sun's opinion and engagement.

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