You missed your shot at fame and fortune, Blib!

Michael Crichton floated a theory that the media, spurred on by certain forces, likes to keep us in a "State of Fear", which was also the title of the book. Global warming, stranger abductions of children, murder, etc., are all examples he cited about the media's distortion of facts to keep us in a perpetual "state of fear". He mentioned in the book (and I wish I had it here to give exact numbers) that the average newscast has upped the use of words like "crisis" and "catastrophe" exponentially over the last several years. And it's all to create these panic situations, such as this one.

I'm not trying to minimize the deaths that this illness has caused, but influenza causes tens of thousands of deaths (mostly in cases like Blib's, where you get complications, I would suspect), yet a few dozen confirmed cases in the entire country, and stores are selling out of hand sanitizer and face masks! And, yes, I bought hand sanitizer the other night! I am a lemming.