The Flu (Health)

[Mick Harper]

I see we have a second death. Cue national wailing and gnashing of teeth. It would be interesting to hear how many people die of the flu in Britain in an average year for comparative purposes but I guess we won't be hearing that number any time soon. In case comparisons are made. "We go over now to Hallam General. I understand you have a death?" "Yes, Krishnan, but it's good news for Sheffield. Tests show Mrs Arbuthnot died of ordinary flu -- and her pre-existing health problems. Back to you in the studio."

What we do have though is a very significant variation in, as Chad has taught us, 'morbidity rates'. One estimate I heard from an official, or at any rate, an expert source was

[Chad]

[Mick Harper]

I think it was me. I've got a lot on my plate. It's this dancing, gives you a real appetite. You touch on an interesting point though. Coronavirus clearly carries off all the old biddies who were already gumming up our acute wards with their wretched underlying health issues but then would require paying care homes a thousand pounds a week out of our hard-earned expectations from divvying up their estates. I'm not saying it's a good thing, I'm not saying it was concocted in a lab in a country with too many elderly people because of a one-child policy, I'm not saying it's God punishing us for putting our penises in bottoms rather than the place He specifically designated, but it could be a combination of these things.

[Chad]

One good thing that may come out of all this, is that the Chinese (and their neighbours) may come to the realisation that it isn't necessarily a good idea to ingest all sorts of bits of random dead wildlife.

If it had been the common rhinovirus that had mutated into a deadly form, rather than the coronavirus... it may just have thrown a lifeline to those poor horny pachyderms.

[Mick Harper]

What a nifty new area. China (do I mean the Far East?) is extremely omnivoric when it comes to animals. We've touched on the extreme intimacy of animal husbandry in Chinese cities and the potential for, let us just say, cross-contamination, but the number of organisms that must be present in the average traditional Chinese medicine pharmacy must be fairly stupendous. But.. but... these are all dried or in a bottle of some preservative medium or whatever. They've got DNA including presumably potentially harmful DNA (they are medicines, after all, and must have 'active' ingredients) but they can't ... er .. mingle, breed, mutate ... help me here, O Wise One.

[Chad]

Don't forget prion diseases... BSE spread throughout the national herd, via dried cattle feed.

Nature always finds a way... (as they say in Jurassic Park.)

[Chad]

Picornaviridae

[Wile E. Coyote]

It looks like coronavirus will save lives. Much less deadly than flu, and folks are now taking precautions that will prevent them getting both for years to come.

I might be wrong, running bloody awful temperature, can't think straight.

[Mick Harper]

The deadliness is not the issue surely, it is whether human beings are able to do anything about it. So far I've heard that 'containment' means putting off the onset until the winter NHS squeeze on beds is over -- as if this degree of micro-management is practical. "OK, lads, Emergency Ward Ten's over, let her rip." But alternatively it's to delay it until the summer when higher temperatures will kill off the bug. But not in south-east Asia where the bug is flourishing in quite warmish climates.

Now I confess to being baffled by the germ theory of illness since it always seems to me that everyone comes into contact with everybody else directly or indirectly sooner or later so I can't see how anyone doesn't get it. I understand that some people have acquired immunity (somehow) and that all children have acquired immunity (somehow) but for the rest of us precautions surely mean we catch it from the fourth contact rather than the third, second or first. Since until we acquire this mysterious immunity we are going to contact the ninety-eighth, ninety-ninth and one hundredth person, what diff?

Portobello market crowds slightly down. Silver lining.

[Wile E. Coyote]

[Mick Harper]

This is what I find so baffling even making orthodox assumptions. They will ban Italy vs England but not England vs Wales, for instance, yet Rome is not a hotspot and thousands of British people must be visiting parts of Italy which are hotspots. Eighty thousand people spending a couple of hours in intimate contact (it requires fifteen minutes, we were told by one expert) just down the road from the first British death is perfectly fine.

What I think is happening, and you saw it in the early stages of global warming, is a policy of 'high hanging fruit' -- the low hanging ones being what we all need for daily sustenance. Hence when the Antarctic ozone hole was discovered, freon was declared the culprit and freon-based fridges and aerosols were phased out. Very inconvenient but conveniently there were alternatives waiting in the wings. Meanwhile a rather more likely culprit, mass jet travel, just carried on growing. No alternative in the wings if you will forgive the pun.

[Mick Harper]

We are actually going to be saved by civil disobedience! As the official world triggers meltdown in every direction, the little people are increasingly staying at home, keeping quiet and taking their chances. This, as we know, is being reported as "The good news is that cases in [...] are coming down quite steeply." The official world treats no news as good news (it can hardly say, "Our citizens are ignoring us on a wider and wider basis.") Eventually when the body bags are coming out in normal (or indeed severe) flu epidemic proportions ("Deaths have stabilised all over the world") we can go back to taking our chances in peace and quiet.

We may have to set up sleeper cells for next time.

[Mick Harper]

[Mick Harper]

Wish me luck. I am due to be in intimate contact with 50,000 East Enders at the London Stadium on Sunday at the urgent request of a friend with a spare season ticket and a need to moan to someone about the Irons' midfield. If only our so-called government would ban sporting events I wouldn't have to undertake these social obligations. Come on, you self-isolators!

[Mick Harper]