When I told my doctor I could hear buzzing in my ears, he said: “That’s just a bug that’s going around.”
It’s an old gag but my point is that we have taken the people on the front line for granted for too long.
It is shocking to see NHS staff dealing with seriously ill Covid-19 patients while using face masks and other protective gear that makes it harder to actually do their job.
Don’t be surprised if the NHS decides we should wear masks indoors. Not to stop the virus – but to stop us scoffing ourselves. A survey on one radio station asked people about their diet since the lockdown began. Crikey, a lot of listeners admitted they are just lolling about at home all day and stuffing their faces. Those chocolate teacakes you stockpiled are not going to eat themselves.
In this house, we go back to retro desserts – semolina and tapioca. On the list is sago, once a yucky dollop that made school canteen lunchtimes a nightmare, now an exotic food extracted from tropical palm trees. Have they improved since I remember being force-fed gunge in Bernera Primary School? Sago is also used industrially as a textile stiffener – like the opposite of fabric conditioner – for formal military apparel. Hot sago used to fall off my spoon. I remember that excruciating pain – then I moved on to long trousers.
While many of us are at home fretting that we cannot visit friends or go shopping without being distant, the dedicated medical professionals turn up for work each day not knowing if they are also going to be laid low by this dreaded virus. Will they take it home and infect their own families? They must be terrified. No wonder they are disgusted by those who ignore the warnings and the danger.
Sadly, twits still twist the pandemic facts. Such people think coronavirus can be cured by lemon juice or that it’s a Chinese disease spread through 5G mobile communications. I saw TV host Eamonn Holmes claiming 5G nonsense should not be dismissed. So does he think a respiratory virus could possibly be carried by electromagnetic waves? Or that 5G radio waves target our immune systems? Possibly, as he thinks it worthy of consideration.
Because Wuhan, where the virus outbreak in China was first recorded, was one of the areas involved in the 5G launch, they must be linked, according to some of the world’s dumbest people. Concerns, particularly among American technologists, do exist after reported evidence that Huawei may be testing mobile systems that can spy on users. So fools claim the two are linked. There’s no evidence.
Holmes claims denials “suit the state’s narrative”. Er, whatever position you take will suit one side’s narrative but aligning yourself with conspiracy theorists and not using grey matter undermines science, reason and puts a question mark over anyone’s suitability to mediate debate. Respiratory diseases are carried in water droplets from infected respiratory systems.
They say 5G is new and unproven technology. Is there evidence 5G affects immune systems? There’s actually more evidence that handset radiation, when spreading falsehoods, fries immature brains. As a fictional Holmes was wont to say: “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”
Areas with the worst infection have no 5G coverage. Giving an alternative view an airing is, theoretically, a good thing. Not, however, when it lends credence to false courses of action that may lead to avoidable deaths.
Is the privileged ITV presenter aware that the inability to dismiss nonsense has created a mindset where a convicted Glaswegian cocaine dealer is reportedly offering £1,000 to idiots to burn down 5G masts?
Gullible keyboard warriors then believe – and republish – the utter garbage on social media. Here’s another interesting one I saw earlier. A guy from Fort William has invented a golf ball that will automatically go in the hole if it gets within four inches. He has warned his customers not to carry the ball in their back pocket. Don’t rubbish it – in case that suits the medical profession’s narrative. Quick, send that to Eamonn Holmes.
Our escape from the lockdown and all the misinformation is to try to carry on planning things as normal, but just doing them at home. We planned a night out last week. I pressed my suit, although we have no sago yet to stiffen it. One of the jacket buttons broke and I had to superglue it. Mrs X began dolling herself up and we crowded round the wash-hand basin a few minutes until the pretend taxi. She asked me to reach to the bathroom cupboard for her lipstick.
Helpfully, I took the cap off and handed it to her. Maybe I picked up that superglue by mistake. She’s still not talking to me.
