The risk you can't do anything about feels scarier than the...

The risk you can't do anything about feels scarier than the one you can. Washing your hands a lot, sneezing into your elbow, knowing that avoiding crowded places if there's a flu epidemic of any kind, those are applicable. They're emotionally reassuring in the face of some new threat. New threats are always scarier than ones we've lived with for a while. It's just their newness.