Politics is like a virus

Politics is like a virus

Two major issues that dominate the front-page news and our attention daily are the outbreak of Covid-19 and the deterioration of the political situation. Somehow both matters share something in common.

First, both cases started in one place and spread out very quickly. The contagious virus was first reported in Wuhan and today has infected around 100,000 people in more than 80 countries and took more than 3,300 lives as of March 6.

Anxiety is what I feel during this outbreak. I try to avoid crowded places, especially in air-conditioned rooms. I never know if passengers sitting next to me on a bus, a plane or standing at the BTS have the disease, or if things people touch like banknotes, borrowed pens, and food packages are free from droplets of those who are sick.

Hand sanitiser in public places is not always available. Recently, when I went through Suvarnabhumi and Don Mueang airports, I found that most of the hand-sanitiser dispensers were empty. Thermal screening is not available for domestic passengers at both arrival and departure halls of the airports, as well as those airports in destinations like Chiang Mai, Phitsanulok and Sukhothai.

Like the virus epidemic, the discontent with the government started small, with flash mobs in Bangkok organised by the disbanded Future Forward Party (FFP) from time to time. Today the situation has escalated after the Constitutional Court dissolved the party and banned its executives from politics for 10 years for accepting 191.2 million baht from an illegitimate source.

The students, who believe that the party represented their voices, cry foul. They have organised a series of flash mobs in and outside Bangkok. About 30 educational institutions, including colleges and even high schools, will also host the flash mobs because they want their opinions to be heard.

Student movements trigger public fear of political unrest, especially when the government tries to stop the activities.

Beside, people are divided by the political situation and by the coronavirus outbreak.

The latest example is the return of illegal Thai workers, or phi noi (meaning "little ghosts"), from South Korea. The government estimates that about 10,000 Thais will return home to escape the Covid-19 epidemic in South Korea. The latest statistics of the Immigration Bureau reported that from Dec 1 until March 4, more than 2,000 illegal workers already returned home through Suvarnabhumi, Don Mueang and Phuket airports.

From March 2-4, about 358 came back, and only two are suspected of carrying the infection. Those who do not have a fever returned to their homes in the provincial areas, to at least to 33 provinces, which leads to a climate of fear.

Cyberbully storms occur on Twitter and Facebook, accusing phi noi of spreading the virus as if they were the diseased. Many demanded the government to quarantine them all. Neighbours and people who know them keep an eye on the returning droves. When they know that those phi noi wander out from their homes, or travel here and there instead of practising precautions and self-quarantine for at least 14 days, they shame the phi noi on social media.

Aggressive and offensive words are widely used by both sides. And that somehow leads to fights and even death threats.

Fake news about Covid-19 also spread on social media like false political news.

The faulty information includes this and that hospital, school or province having new Covid-19 patients or authorities concealing the real death numbers. Some messages even mislead people about health recommendations to prevent or cure Covid-19 with the names and logos of well-known hospitals.

The Anti-Fake News Centre is slow in responding to fact-checking. Rumours spread far and wide as people tend to believe in or are influenced by the first information they encounter, even if it is fake, because the message is in line with their biases, opinions or experiences.

Research on "The Spread Of True And False News Online" from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has found that people are more likely to share novel information because novelty attracts attention, contributes to productive decision-making, and encourages information-sharing.

False news is more novel than true news. As a result, falsehoods are diffused significantly farther, faster, deeper, and more broadly than the truth. News about politics and urban legends spreads fastest and most widely.

No one knows when the outbreak of Covid-19 will end or if the political situation will escalate to the levels of Black May of 1992 or the student uprising of 1973. One thing for sure is that those who get sick because of Covid-19 can be cured, unlike those who are sick of the political situation. They're still looking for the right remedy.

Karnjana Karnjanatawe is a travel writer for the Life section of the Bangkok Post.

Karnjana Karnjanatawe

Travel writer

Karnjana Karnjanatawe is a travel writer for Life section.

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