Covid-22

There was only one catch: concern for one’s own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind; he was crazy and could be furloughed. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to go back to work; he’d be crazy if he wanted to work and sane if he didn’t, but if he was sane he’d have to work. That’s Covid-22.

If you don’t have coronavirus, the doctor won’t see you; you’re wasting his time; but if you do have it he won’t see you as you’re a danger to him and his imaginary patients. You go home and die. That’s Covid-22. If you want to protect the NHS you have to close the economy and that takes away the money that pays for it: that’s Covid-22. To stop the NHS being overwhelmed you stop allowing it to treat patients, you close it down; that’s Covid-22.

You let the infection run wild and the population quickly become immune, except those it kills, but protect them by locking everyone at home, and they don’t get the immunity and it carries on and they still die: that’s Covid-22.

You have political parties competing to talk about liberty and personal freedom for centuries, then a single bug from China makes them compete to condemn liberty: if they call for an end to freedom they are called tyrants, and if they call for freedom they are murders: that’s Covid-22.

Despair: that’s all there is. In the spring we accepted breathing in for a couple of months, and almost a year later we are still not free, resenting and hating whenever we are forced to pull on a fœtid face-nappy, and whenever a neighbour suddenly crosses the road to avoid us. This is what it is doing. Personally, I would prefer everyone to get the damned thing, and me first, than to put up with this. Does that make me crazy, or the only rational man on the street? That’s Covid-22.