We now know that you can have the dreaded virus for a week and not show any obvious symptoms. It is now suggested that taking regular supplements of vitamin D – the sunshine vitamin – can help many people.
It won’t stop you getting it but your body may deal with it better if you do. So dragging ourselves outdoors is a must. But many other claimed cures are unproven.
The American president’s references to an anti-malarial drug called hydroxychloroquine and whether it and other disinfectants could be cures reminded some of us of certain crofters’ use of a treatment for liver fluke disease in sheep.
When sheep suffered from that awful condition, they became listless and had no energy. Their wool would come away in patches. Sometimes they couldn’t even stand up because of the nasty wee bug inside them.
A capsule delivered down the throat with a rubber-nozzled pump-action gun was often a miracle cure. Crofters accustomed to losing such sheep would scratch their heads in wonder as the pill did its work. A few days later, the black-faced beauty would take up its bed and walk, run and go on to have a happy hillside life. That capsule was hailed as a gift from on high.
Its reputation spread wider when Big Norman from Kirkibost – Tormod a’ Spung – accidentally burst a capsule on his Sunday breeks. A stubborn stain that had prevented their regular use for Free Church services suddenly vanished. There it was – gone.
His son, Norman Angus, known to all as Puss, recalls speculation about what else the wee capsule could do spreading through the village.
“It was just amazing. It wasn’t meant to do that. There was no explanation at all, at all,” he tells me.
Could the sheep’s “bulla” – that’s what we called a capsule – have other miraculous properties? Could a crofter, who had the classic symptoms of being listless and having no energy, be revitalised by a quick pop down the gullet with the pump action thingummyjig?
On many mornings there were plenty of crofters out of sorts after a late trip to the bar at Scaliscro in Uig or the Doune Braes Hotel at Carloway. Was the “bulla” a hangover cure?
Despite various mystery crofter illnesses over the years, whether anyone risked their livers and lives taking the liver fluke treatment for a hangover isn’t recorded – but at least they had spotless dungarees.
The fact Donald Trump has given voice to suggestions that consideration be given to the use of medicines designed for other uses for coronavirus is giving some cause for thought in Kirkibost.
Puss says: “Donald Trump should test his anti-malarial drug to see if can take a stain off his Sunday trousers. If it can, it could have many other undiscovered uses.”
In a crisis you just have to make do with what you have. When I went shopping yesterday, the supermarket was out of toilet paper again. What could I do? I ended up using lettuce leaves. That was just the tip of the iceberg.
Mrs X has found new previously-undiscovered uses for our oven. She is busy baking lovely cakes and freezing them. Coming downstairs the other day, I found her all hot and sweaty as she had been making a number of particularly delicious ginger cakes.
Then I suggested we take our cuppas outside and sit in the rare sunshine to get some vitamin D into our bodies.
She leaned back and stared at the big clear blue sky and said: “Have you noticed that there are no polluting jet planes up there going to and from America? With the lockdown and so few planes flying, there are no vapour trails up there.”
We marvelled at the vast blue unstreaked heavens. After a while, I said: “Actually, I can see a vapour trail.”
She quickly scanned the sky to no avail and demanded to know where I had seen it. I told her it was coming from the kitchen window.
She replied: “What are you on about, you clown? There is no…oh no, no, no.”
She had forgotten she had a great big cake in the oven. The cup of coffee went flying as she dashed inside in a frantic bid to save the luxury ginger creation.
Too late. That cake was supposed to make 12 slices but it was charred so badly that when we pulled off all the black bits what was left was the size of a cupcake. Just as well we have no visitors nowadays.
Like so many, Mrs X has also been Googling the Covid-19 treatments and symptoms. She said to me: “It says here that one of the symptoms of having coronavirus is having no taste.”
I told her not to fret over all the medical stuff as it would just depress her.
She said: “Seriously, I think this thing about having no taste is very important. When I look at you, I realise I have had these symptoms for the last 25 years.”
