With HMPV looming over us, I wonder—are we on the brink of another Covid-like hysteria?

Act 1: Fear Takes Center Stage

Fear of the unknown. The reflex to overreact. Every cough and sneeze under a microscope.
Labs mushrooming everywhere. Machines humming. Pockets emptying. And panic rising.

Act 2: Media Circus

One pneumonia case hits the headlines. Breathless coverage, often wrong, rarely verified. Privacy? A distant memory. Speculation becomes gospel. Hysteria snowballs.

Act 3: The Drug Deluge

Suddenly, miracle drugs flood the market. Each one marketed as a lifesaver. Paracetamol is out; fancy new brands are in—selling faster than sanity can intervene.
Pharma giants? Smiling. No, laughing. All the way to the bank.

Act 4: ICU Overload

Hospitals expand ICUs, buy more ventilators. Patients lie isolated, confused, subjected to unproven therapies.
Hospitals? Laughing their way to the bank too.

Act 5: The Experts Emerge

TV screens and webinars feature “experts” who learned the virus’s name yesterday. Jargon-filled soundbites multiply, boosting their CVs and followers.

Act 6: Guidelines and Chaos

National research bodies falter. Guidelines pop up daily—irrational, unscientific. Evidence-based medicine gets sidelined. Politics takes the driver’s seat.

Act 7: The Market’s Wild Ride

Stock markets swing madly. Pharma stocks soar; others plummet. Shareholders lose sleep and savings, trapped in the chaos.

Act 8: Science Takes a Backseat

“Desperate times call for desperate measures,” they say. And with that, scientific reasoning is tossed aside. Treatments are tried without proof. Therapies are adopted without logic. Fear replaces evidence. Hope replaces caution.

The Final Act: Acceptance

Eventually, calm returns. People realize life is unpredictable. Viruses come and go. The hysteria fades, leaving lessons—some learned, some forgotten.

Will we repeat the same mistakes? Or will we write a new chapter of wisdom and resilience? Only time will tell.