Clang, clang went the cutlery in the cafeteria as my colleague and I sat down to eat the usual lunch.  It was exam season towards the end of first semester and winter break was soon approaching.  Things were busy.  As usual, my colleauge was a nervous wreck but this time the vibe was even more tense as he rambled on about this mysterious pneumonia ravaging around China.

The first instinct was to tune this guy out.  Besides the fact that most of what he says is rumors without evidence to back up the statements, we hear stories of communicable diseases in China all the time.  It's a nasty combination of poor mental and physical health in the population, ridiculous workload, and weak immune systems.  Not a day goes by where there isn't a bug of some sort going around, so pneumonia is nothing new.

So basically I brushed off this pneumonia talk by saying “Ah cmon man, whatever this thing is you're talking about it can't be that big of a deal.  Besides, why aren't we hearing anything about it?"

But he insisted.  "Oh it's happening alright.  Many people are coming down with this mysterious pneumonia in Wuhan especially."

I said, "Maybe you're right, but don't people get sick all the time in China especially this time of year?  The weather is horrible, it's cold, cloudy, and polluted so this is just normal there would be some pneumonia going around."

My colleague went on to talk about this pneumonia.  Having lived in China for so long I said, "Fine, let's say it's happening as you say.  We're all gonna be out of here in a week and enjoying our warm winter vacations in Thailand.  What's there to worry about?"  We went back to our busy routines.