DR MAX: Don’t be a nation of Corporal Joneses – we all need to calm down about coronavirus 

They are scenes reminiscent of a zombie movie: photographs and TV footage of people pushing trolleys up and down supermarket aisles in a frantic search for ‘necessities’, only to be confronted with empty or ransacked shelves.

But it’s not the desperate survivors of an apocalyptic invasion by the Walking Dead who’ve swept through Tesco, Lidl or Sainsbury’s, but those living in fear of the rapidly-spreading coronavirus.

Everything from hand-sanitising gel, loo rolls and kitchen towel to tins of baked beans and packs of bottled water have been snapped up as consumers stockpile in anticipation of a looming Armageddon.

Enough already! We all need to calm down NOW!

Even if the coronavirus, Covid-19, does become an epidemic in Britain, giving in to panic is never the sensible option.

As we’ve seen this week, it just makes us behave irrationally.

We human beings are incredibly bad at assessing risk — and good at giving in to panic.

We are complacent in the face of threats we’ve become accustomed to while we over-react to novel sources of danger.

I once hosted a birthday party for my mum in London a few years ago, shortly after a terrorist attack. A worried auntie called to tell me that she dared not risk coming to the capital.

‘It’s safer here,’ she said.

This made me chuckle. Many more people die each year from falling down the stairs — more than 5,000 older people in the UK died as a result of a fall in 2017 — than at the hands of violent radicals.

But, as we stand at the top of the stairs, we feel it’s less risky than exposing ourselves to the unknown dangers of the outside world.

What my aunt really meant was that the risk of a terrorist attack was unknown, unpredictable and, therefore, incredibly scary.

The same is true of the coronavirus. Measured against many other viral outbreaks and common diseases, Covid-19 appears — at least at this stage — to be less contagious or deadly.

Seasonal influenza, for example, results in three to five million cases of severe illness worldwide every year, and 290,000 to 650,000 deaths.

Yet the annual take-up of the flu vaccine is abysmal. People simply don’t see influenza for the killer that it is.

It couldn’t be a more different story when it comes to the coronavirus: instead of complacency, panic appears to be the preferred option.

People are calling up hospitals, GP surgeries and the NHS 111 switchboard at the slightest sniffle. Dare I say it, but most of them are the worried well or looking for a bit of attention or two weeks off work.

And yet, the result of this self-indulgent worrying is that the health service risks being overwhelmed, while people who are genuinely at risk — because they have returned from a coronavirus ‘hotspot’ abroad or been in contact with someone who was — can take hours to get through for the advice they need.

The lesson to be learned about panic is that people all too often get hurt, not by an actual threat, but by others’ fear of it.

It’s something we would all do well to bear in mind today.

Of course, the prospect of a viral pandemic is worrying but listening and acting on official advice, taking precautions and looking out for others — particularly the elderly and frail — is far more productive than turning into a nation of Corporal Joneses.

And what if supplies of hand sanitiser are running perilously low in the shops; good old soap has been around for thousands of years — the Babylonians were the first to use it in 2800BC. It’s cheap and plentiful and washing your hands remains the most effective way of protecting us against infections.

If the worst does come to the worst and there is an epidemic in Britain, the vast majority of those of us who contract Covid-19 will recover because almost all the evidence points to it being a mild, self-limiting illness in most people.

That knowledge alone should be enough to stop panic in its tracks. 

My goofy gnashers made me paranoid

I’m a great believer in people getting their crooked teeth fixed. How you look when you smile can affect your confidence and how others perceive you.

But the British Orthodontic Society warned this week that people are putting their dental health at risk by buying DIY kits to correct crooked teeth.

The idea that anyone would risk damaging their teeth this way horrifies me.

When I was in my late teens, the teeth on one side started collapsing inwards and pushed my front teeth so they started to stick out. 

My upper lip sat over one protruding tooth like a permanent snarl. I became paranoid about my goofy teeth, rarely smiled and covered my mouth whenever I did.

My dentist told me the problem was so extensive that the best option was to replace the teeth with dentures.

I was devastated. Thankfully, a relative paid for me to have work done. It took five years, but it changed my life — and my personality from a self-conscious introvert into a confident and cheerful chap (I like to think!).

I’ve seen some daft things on the internet, but few as bonkers as the latest ludicrous fad: ‘dry fasting’.

This involves abstaining from liquids of any sort for around ten hours a day in order to ‘give the kidneys a break’.

This displays such woeful ignorance of how the body works that it’s difficult to know where to start. It’s like saying ‘Give your lungs a break by stopping breathing for a bit’!

The fact that this absurd craze has gained any sort of traction suggests we are failing to teach the young basic biology.

Give new mums a break from pain

Midwives helping women in labour are being told to stop refusing them epidurals — pain-killing injections into the spinal canal to numb the lower half of the body.

This edict was prompted by a government investigation which found that, in breach of official guidelines, many women who requested them were being turned down. 

Staff shortages, cost, and a belief that ‘labour is meant to be hard work’ were among several factors.

It’s remarkable how the pregnant body has become politicised. In every other area of medicine, we strive to treat patients as adults who are capable of making decisions about their own lives.

As soon as a woman becomes pregnant, however, diktats rain down on her head and she’s made to feel guilty and a failure if she doesn’t comply.

Take caesareans, another area where women seem to be deemed incapable of making the right choice.

All too often, doctors and midwives decide on a vaginal delivery when the mother-to-be would much prefer a C-section.

The ‘natural birth is best’ brigade should back off, listen to new mums and give them a break.

We all know that sleep plays a vital role in good health and well-being. 

Now a study published by the American College of Cardiology has found that middle-aged shift workers who have erratic sleep patterns are twice as likely to develop heart disease. 

This adds to the growing evidence that it’s not just the amount of sleep someone gets that matters, but the regularity of their sleeping pattern.

I see many patients plagued with sleep trouble — either lying awake for hours or constantly waking up.

I’ve written before about how sleep deprivation is a national crisis with consequences both for individuals and the NHS. I just wish it was being taken more seriously.

Dr Max prescribes… 

RESPECT: CONSENT, BOUNDARIES AND BEING IN CHARGE OF YOU by Rachel Brian (Wren & Rook)

This book is an incredibly useful tool for parents starting conversations about these important issues with their children.

The author explains the importance of the concepts in the title through simple comic strips, drawn in a way that’s accessible to children as young as seven, but will also appeal to teen and adult readers.

It’s never too early to teach your child about their rights, especially when it comes to their bodies, and particularly in the era of social media.