I think it's very interesting the disproportionate reaction that a virus or disease gets versus any other number of things that people risk their lives doing on a daily basis. Particularly for lesser known viruses or diseases which our brains haven't acclimated to.<p>The CDC estimates that 31 million Americans caught the flu this year, resulting in about 200,000 hospitalizations, and between 12,000 - 30,000 people have died this season from flu-related complications. So as a rule of thumb you could say 10% of America infected, ~1% of those people are hospitalized, and 10% of <i>those</i> people die. Every year.<p>Do we close events during the winter because of the flu? Of course not. We would never be able to have a winter-season event ever again. The flu <i>vaccine</i> is not particularly effective, some years it's even almost entirely <i>ineffective</i>, although most years about 50/50...<p>I'm still of the (clearly unpopular) opinion that the response to COVID is 1 part science, and 3 parts hysteria.<p>At the gym today I heard a great saying. Almost 3 million people die every year from obesity. Maybe instead of yelling at everyone to wash their hands, we should be yelling at everyone to eat a damn salad. SXSW is substantially less hazardous to the public health than McDonalds.<p>Why is the response to this coronavirus so hysterical? You could come up with any number of fatality stats that have taken more lives since January than COVID-19. Lower respiratory infections (not COVID related) kill approximately 200,000 people a month. Malaria kills 50,000 a month. Even just driving kills 100,000 people a month.<p>Rather than thinking SXSW organizers are unbelievable for not canceling, I think that the Mayor/City of Austin is unbelievable <i>for</i> canceling. Anyway, I just got back from a trip to Orlando, and Disney World and Universal, while not packed, certainly seemed busy.<p>The CDC should do what they are setup to do; ensure that testing is both cheap, accurate, and readily available, that people are educated about how to reasonably decrease their chances of catching a virus, teach how to manage a mild infection and self-quarantine, and when to seek medical attention. IMO, we don't need to tank the world economy in order to do this.