There is a lot of ground between willful ignorance and uncontrolled fear. You may have heard of Cooper's conditions of situational awareness .
Condition WHITE is denial that threats exists around you. Head buried in the smartphone all day long. When asked why you live in NYC and insist on being unarmed the answer is "because I am safe here" and "only police should have guns". There is active denial about the volatility and potential danger of the factors and actors around you. How you want things to be is more important than how things are.
Condition YELLOW is awareness that threats do exist and a continuous effort is made to identify them. I quote "Condition yellow DOES NOT equate with paranoia or any other irrational fear of persons or places. Instead, you simply have moved your alertness to a level of attention that will prevent you from being totally surprised by the actions of another person."
Condition ORANGE means a specific threat has been identified and is monitored and evaluated for the need of action. Potential courses of actions are planned and evaluated.
Condition RED is when a threat has become relevant and it is time to act. The goal of this action is to circumvent or defeat the threat and revert back to condition yellow.
Condition BLACK is either having failed to defeat the threat or having been blindsided while in condition WHITE. BLACK means dead, raped, disfigured, etc.
Looks like you prefer condition WHITE whereas I put Covid-19 in the YELLOW category by February (no WTF moments in the supermarket back then) and in the DARK ORANGE category today. Only God knows whether you or I will end up in category BLACK but as a pilot I have made it a livelong point to die trying to save my ass, passengers, and ship rather than be know posthumously as the idiot who ignored dozens of "alarm bells" in his final minutes.
As far as my fear is concerned, the joke of the little old lady with two guns in her purse and one in her coat comes to mind. When asked by someone what she is afraid about, she answered "Little, because I am prepared".
ETA: Today's numbers are 55k dead worldwide, 6k in the US. Let's talk again in 3 days. (this refers to post
#25)
