Uncertainty, concern, fear, panic or mass hysteria?

People worldwide are scared of the coronavirus. They are anxious that their friends and family will be infected, of that they will be infected themselves. Does that mean we are dealing with mass panic or mass hysteria? Professor in Emotion and Affective Processes Agneta Fischer talks about collective and contagious fear, mass hysteria and how to regulate fear. Scared people are far more likely to look for information about the threat and to value information that confirms the threat - A real recipe for collective fear . Statistics have by now shown us that the virus is extremely contagious, leading to rapid increases in the number of sick people and mortality rates. Images from China and Italy and the WHO declaring a pandemic have served to further increase our fears. People who are sick or otherwise fragile are more likely to be infected, but it does not discriminate between the rich or poor, male or female, gay or straight, educated or illiterate, or people from the West or any other part of the world.