Coronavirus in Spain: From tourism hotspot to contagion hotbed (DW)

The literature of contagion is vile. A plague is like a lobotomy. It cuts away the higher realms, the loftiest capacities of humanity, and leaves only the animal. “Farewell to the giant powers of man,” Mary Shelley wrote in “The Last Man,” in 1826, after a disease has ravaged the world. (The New Yorker)

We’ve long known that panic spreads, but experts more recently have come to understand emotional contagion, the mechanism by which people’s emotions (positive or negative) “go viral” within groups, influencing our thoughts and actions. Learning about that mechanism is key to dampening negative emotional contagion and making us feel a bit less frantic. (Harvard Business Review)