VIRAL WARS: REPORTS FROM THE FRONT LINES

The novel coronavirus AKA COVID-19 in its spread from Ground Zero in Wuhan, China has engaged the attention and the fervid imagination of the world in a way nothing short of the Second Coming could do. As one meme I saw recently put it, climate change needs COVID-19’s publicist. Surely if we paid as much attention to that slow-acting certain disaster as we have to this fast-acting potential problem, somebody would be doing something—even if it was wrong.

And so much of our reaction to this viral threat has been wrong-headed, misdirected, unintentionally comedic and just plain dumb. I’m reminded of the old Laurel and Hardy routine where the hapless pair attempt to clean up a pile of scrap lumber. Stan moves a plank to one side of the room and turns back to get another; Ollie, humming happily, goes behind Stan’s back to get the same plank and takes it back to where Stan got it. Lots of activity; nothing gets done.

Yes, the coronavirus outbreak, now officially a worldwide pandemic, is serious business. People are dying, trade and commerce are being affected, lives are being disrupted. But there is a lighter side to this story, too. And sometimes it helps to laugh rather than run screaming in panic.

Some randomly chosen examples from my Facebook news feed (Thanks to Lea Kirk for posting several of these!):

Toilet Paper Battles—Someone please tell me what TP has to do with a respiratory virus. This is not a snowstorm or a hurricane that requires everyone to add to the stockpile in their basements, and yet Lea reports the crowds at her local Costco required rent-a-cops to direct traffic in the parking lot. Apparently, the hoards were all out with one objective—MUST HAVE TOILET PAPER!! The comments on Lea’s post were helpful: Who knew you could find TP at Lowe’s or Staples? I don’t usually worry about toilet paper; in fine European fashion, I have a bidet. But, then, there’s always Amazon. Why fight any crowds?

 

NAW, SHERIFF, I'M JUS' MIXIN' ME UP SOME HAND SANITIZER!

 Other Supplies Gain Value—Just try finding hand sanitizer or Lysol at Walmart right now. And there has been a run on face masks, even though medical authorities have warned repeatedly that the masks DO NOT protect you from the virus. They’re only useful in preventing the spread of germs if you wear one when YOU are sick. (But God help you if you go out in this fear-filled environment with a sniffle. A crowd is likely to gather bearing torches and pitchforks threatening to burn you at the stake.) Here in the mountains of North Carolina, we have our priorities straight. A woman was seen at the local grocery store purchasing five cases of pork-n-beans. Either she’s ready for the coming apocalypse or for a church barbecue supper. Not sure.

Too Many Zombie Movies—Proof once again that Twitter is the Land of the Intellectual Giants and Halfwits, comes this exchange between horror/SF author Stephen King and, uh, an idiot: 

King: No, coronavirus is NOT like THE STAND. It’s not anywhere near as serious. It’s eminently survivable. Keep calm and take all reasonable precautions.

Idiot: And how the hell would you know?! Did you even read that book?

Meanwhile, me: SMH.

Got your flu shot? –A few things to note here. The coronavirus is NOT the flu and CANNOT be prevented by a “super” flu shot. But I would wager that a large proportion of the folks panicking over COVID-19 haven’t even bothered to protect themselves from the deadly disease that IS preventable—the flu. Only around 37 percent of adults do get the shot every year and the list of excuses is legion. There have been 45 million cases of flu in the U.S. this year, with 46,000 deaths, many of them children. Why are we not freaking out about that? Because we’re used to it. We’re familiar with the flu, we recognize its course through the body and through communities AND we have vaccines and anti-virals that do some good. Not so yet with COVID-19. The other vaccine that would be advisable right now is the pneumonia shot. Many of the deaths from the coronavirus are due to secondary pneumonia.

Come clean—Okay, quick now, what’s the best way to prevent getting sick with any virus? You learned it in kindergarten, or you should have: WASH YOUR HANDS! Often. With soap. Now, we’re advised to wash for 20 seconds. How long is that? Long enough to sing “Happy Birthday” all the way through or to recite the alphabet twice. But if you’re a Star Trek fan, you can have even more fun with it. This famous recitation also takes 20 seconds (courtesy of my friend and longtime TREK fan Beki Weight):
 

Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds. To seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no man has gone before.

Of course, if you’re a Next-Gen or later fan, you can replace “five-year” with “continuing” and “where no man” with “where no one.” In any case, the cadence, and the required number of seconds, is the same. (As long as you pause appropriately, like Shatner.) 

No more kissy-face—It stands to reason that handshakes, hugs, kisses-as-greetings and other signs of casual affection between people you meet are out in this Era of the New Plague. But TREK fans have this covered, too. Just use Spock’s Live Long and Prosper salute, fingers split two-and-two and thumb apart. Vulcans aren’t known for hugging, either.

Live long and prosper. And outwit COVID-19.

 And don’t worry. We’ll get through this. Or, at least, most of us will. 

Cheers, Donna