No, stop it. We should not be pleased that Donald Trump was in a military hospital being treated for coronavirus. Even if he did ignore the warnings and pretty much refused to wear a mask until recently, many others in this country do the same.
They don’t believe there is a virus, or if there is, that distancing or masks can help in any way. We call them Covidiots but, really, they are just mistaken. It’s an education problem. They are miseducated.
Covidiots say no government, or so-called experts, will tell them what to do. It’s about government control, they say. They will decide what’s good for them. Oh, really? The government tells us we must all drive on the left – for our own good. I don’t see any of the Covidiots – like Piers Corbyn or David Icke – refusing to obey that one. Empty headed, dangerous people.
This miseducation also seems to be a problem with all the leading figures in the Republican party in America if the carry-on in the Rose Garden of the White House last week was anything to go by. They were in there – no masks, sitting close to each other, fist-bumping and generally snogging the face off each other. And I think the women also joined in at some point.
After these months of daft talk about disinfectant and general denial, Mr Trump felt well enough to bleat from hospital that he now understands coronavirus. After more than a million people have died, he finally “gets it”. Really? If so, he must have immediately ordered everyone to obey social distancing and to wear masks? Er, well. I don’t think I heard him say that.
Are we doing better? Considering what Nicola Sturgeon has on her plate, she’s doing better than most. By most, I mean Boris Johnson. Mixed messages about Covid from Downing Street are confusing. Even the PM gets it wrong when he starts trying to describe the visiting rules. He excused himself by resorting to a ghastly Americanism, claiming he misspoke. Listen, you are pregnant or you are not pregnant and you are speaking or you are not speaking.
That “I misspoke” came from Hillary Clinton claiming she’d come under fire in Bosnia in 1996. Some fact-checking showed that was an inverted pile of piffle – which is a Boris Johnsonism. That was when he was accused of snogging the face off Petrol Station Wyatt Earp. Sorry, I miswrote. That should be Petronella Wyatt.
Misspeaking, mixed messages and mumbling don’t help BoJo. Neither does trying to collate virus sufferers’ details in a spreadsheet in a creaking, old XLS format.
In case you are not a computer geek – me neither but my daughter is – that format was back when spreadsheets began. They should be using databases, secured in the cloud. It’s like hitting a nail with the handle of the hammer. No one knew. No one checked. No one cared.
Conservative commentators now see cool chancellor Rishi Sunak as the next PM. More Tories want Sunak to be boss than not. They think bumbling Boris should take his peerage now. It’s no shock Sunak is claiming to anyone who cares to listen that he doesn’t want the PM job and is very happy where he is.
Aye, right. Once upon a time, a politician was asked if he wanted to be PM. He mumbled: “My chances of becoming prime minister are only slightly better than being decapitated by a frisbee, blinded by a champagne cork, locked in a fridge or being reincarnated as an olive.” Was that not the Mayor of London in 2012? Boris Johnson.
Whether you’re the president or not, being in hospital is worrying. Years ago when I had my appendix operation, I was asked by a wet-behind-the-ears surgeon if I wanted to stay awake during it. And for some unfathomable reason, I said yes.
That surgeon looked as if he was still doing his highers. Deftly, he sliced me open and reached in. Oi, mate, that glove will be coming out my mouth in a minute. Then the young sawbones went: “Ha. Got it.” I am thinking, got what? Wow, how did stuff from the butcher’s window get in me? Put that back where you found it, you pubescent white-coated maniac. Anyone got superglue?
Then when I was having my hernia done, a relentlessly cheery Nurse Macarthur came to wheel me down to theatre. Miss Macarthur seemed to misspeak saying: “Right, who’s next for the slab – oops, I meant operating table.” I trembled. Will something go wrong? What if this surgeon is too old and knots the wrong bit? Why didn’t I make a will?
Nurse Macarthur then handed me a flimsy gown that was open at the back. She told me to stop worrying about the procedure, adding cheerfully: “You are not going to die, you know.” I said: “You say that, but I know for sure that when I put on that gown my end will be in sight.”
