This article, and other writings on covid-19 I have read recently, makes the weird choice to treat "panic" and "take threat seriously" as synonyms. As far as I

This article, and other writings on covid-19 I have read recently, makes the weird choice to treat "panic" and "take threat seriously" as synonyms. As far as I can tell, they aren't. If you look up panic in your favorite dictionary, the definition probably looks like "sudden fright that causes irrational behavior". It may be "time to take covid-19 seriously", it is never "time to panic". Those semantics aside, the article does make a reasonable case for taking covid-19 seriously. One sticky point: that graphic with the rather scary looking USA infection projections is not from "the AHA", it's from a webinar presentation hosted by the AHA [1]. The presentation is, as far as I can tell, not an official endorsement by the AHA. That said, the presenter was James Lawler [2], who does seem to be some variety of expert on global health risks. How optimistic or pessimistic he is relative to comparable experts, I don't know. [1] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/coronavirus-dr-james-lawler-warning-us-hospitals-infection-a9385031.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/coronaviru... [2] https://www.unmc.edu/intmed/divisions/id/faculty/lawler.html https://www.unmc.edu/intmed/divisions/id/faculty/lawler.html