Admittedly that's a fairly stupid and ignorant thing to say but when you have major current affair programs dancing around squealing that a minimum of 2 million people will die (in Australia)if the virus (is it a virus?) mutates so it can be passed directly from person to person, people tend to filter out the important bit and get worried. Yep it's scaremongering but that sort of thing is going make the average person just a bit antsy.