Vicky Allan's emotion of the week: Corona anxiety

The coronavirus is barely here in the UK, with only 16 cases as I write, yet already it feels as if we have been suffering from the alarming impact of its news headlines for weeks. The World Health Organisation has called the onslaught an infodemic, the first of the social media age. One WHO official even declared: “We need a vaccine against misinformation.” Stories pop up every few seconds. Messages are contradictory. We’ve been warned against both overreaction and complacency. It’s a regular tick-tock of panic, calm down, panic, calm down.

Meanwhile, in China, a survey found that 42.6% of Chinese citizens tested positive for having anxiety related to the epidemic.

Lockdown has been the word of the week. The pandemic’s spread has been chartable not just as a ripple of figures, but also as a patchwork of spots on the map where people are confined to their homes or hotels. My son asks me if it’s here, in Edinburgh, and I tell him I’m not sure. I tell him most of us have had a coronavirus at some time or another and that for many Covid-19 infection is mild. The flu kills hundreds of thousands globally each year.

But I feel like I’m downplaying it. Some of the footage from China has been terrifying. People are dying – around 2% of those infected, they say. I’m not dismissing that 2%. It is worrying. Often when we see disaster on the other side of the planet – bushfires raging in Australia – it feels like we are watching from safety.

But a pandemic is different. It’s distant, yet it feels like it’s knocking at our door. That rat-tat at the window is there in the stories that keep coming – some ridiculous, some full of sound advice, like handwashing.

But there is, it seems to me, more to this coronanxiety than the virus. It connects with other prevalent anxieties. A virus changes the threat we feel around other humans, and that’s problematic at a time when it feels as if hate is on the rise globally, and populist movements are tapping into our fears around globalisation and immigration.

Among the most worrying symptoms of this anxiety is the associated racism. From early on in the outbreak, Chinese in the UK were reporting “shocking” levels. Yet, a virus doesn’t have a nationality. It likes all humans – regardless of colour of skin or country of birth.

The more it spreads the clearer it will become that we can get it from anyone. Any restaurant – Chinese, Italian, Japanese, Korean, English, Scottish – could be the place we meet someone infected, any bar, any reception, any office. We too could be the ones who carry it across the world.

Covid-19 has become a focus for many of our social and political fears. That’s why, as we sit here, in this moment, in Scotland, not yet properly hit by the epidemic, our feelings around it can seem misplaced, unempathetic, overblown, inadequate, even faintly ridiculous – but above all anxious.

Bus-ted

v. caught doing something bad, for instance sticking two fingers up to the planet by driving a car when you could be taking a bus ride

Last week, Friends of The Earth revealed that, in spite of the climate emergency, Scotland is still hooked on cars. Bus travel declined by 10% in the last five years, car ownership is at a record high, air journeys are soaring, and the numbers cycling or walking to work remains stagnant. We might talk the green talk, but many of us are not walking the walk.

But is it us, or the system, the Government, that has been busted? Many areas have no bus route at all, while those that are cheap and well-served, are well-used. Meanwhile, we continue building infrastructure, motorways and out-of-town housing estates that encourage car use.

If we’re to kick the auto-habit, we surely need more encouragement. What about free bus rides for all, not just the under-19s that the Scottish Government offered last week?

Zero emissions or bust.