Global Pandemic
Weekly - Not Much Change Really
by David Meech
Well on the
upside we no longer have to hear about Meghan
Markle.
The worldwide
pandemic has taken a global grip with varying
outcomes. Britain has adopted some stringent
policies; closing borders, distancing themselves
from the Continent, halting migration of
foreigners and radically restricting the import
of overseas goods. There will be absolutely no
exceptions and even Irish nationals may find
things extraordinarily difficult in terms of
their borders.
So no real
change with Brexit then. But I am sure you are
anxious to hear about Covid-19.
Boris Johnson
has shown astounding leadership by going out and
contracting the virus, along with his Health
Secretary. It seems herd immunity is in fact
effective where common sense is concerned. I am
not sure I would value advice from a Health
Secretary who managed to catch the coronavirus.
Happily, most of the British community are now
confined indoors and will be prevented from going
out to vote on stuff, which has
proved to be the single biggest threat to their
health over the past three years. One of the
first moves of the British cabinet was to
completely isolate Boris Johnson from any contact
with his colleagues’ wives.
So no change
there really.
Jacinda has
today issued a stern command for all old people
to remain isolated indoors. Clearly she was
talking about Winston Peters – to every
cloud a silver lining. Doesn’t apply to me
anyway as I identify as a teenager. I haven’t
heard much from Simon Bridges this week, which is
tremendous since I can rarely understand that guy.
Anyone?
Of course this
week as we entered lockdown, a state of
suspension where the semi-literate learn how far
two metres is, schools and universities were shut.
Students have been staying home, hogging
bathrooms, emptying kitchen pantries, massively
blowing data limits and using up vast quantities
of toilet paper. So no real change on that front
either.
A massive
outbreak of fitness has suddenly hit our streets.
Not since Gallipoli have there been so many Kiwi
struggling to make it up a hill. Back home any
outbreak of civil war seems likely to centre
around the Glen Innes Pak’nSave. Confused
people lining up at a gun store were caught
talking to the media about their right to bear
arms. They must be confused indeed as apparently
they have gone shopping in the wrong country.
In the
financial realm businesses have temporarily
closed and the Kiwi dollar tumbled as the major
caretakers of our economy, thrifty Japanese
housewives, invest in gold, the USD and the Euro.
In fact the Kiwi may plummet so low that we will
need to replace our national currency with the
semi-ripe avocado – at a rate of one avocado
per ten Kiwi dollars. Or one avocado per half
used toilet roll. Avocados have been absolutely
smashing it lately.
Bread has
become illegal, we simply haven’t been told.
Expect that announcement soon. So don’t
worry about it. Tin foil is also in short supply
as conspiracy theories extrapolate daily.
In Australia
Australians have been incredibly Australian by
taking it easy down at the beach, as Australians
are want to do. No change there. Their Prime
Minister told them off, now that he is back from
Hawaii, where he was mostly located during their
last national crisis. Down at the beach
apparently. Australians are longing for the good
old days, when things were simply burning down.
That was far less confusing. Who knows what the
next Australian crisis will bring? Laser firing
drones? Fire breathing crocodiles? Probably just
a new Prime Minister. Prime Minister Slo Mo is
considering moving his cabinet to Xmas Island,
where things are a lot safer. He has released a
list of establishments that will remain open
during the lockdown, which he doesn’t want
people referring to as a lockdown. They are to
officially refer to the lockdown as “the
unpaid leave crisis” – like these
pollies ever took unpaid leave. This extensive
list of places still open in Australia includes
stores, petrol stations, pharmacies, bottle shops
and hospitals.
Yes indeed it
will take the virus from hell for Australians to
start closing down their bottle shops.
Over in China,
and now that all those pesky foreign journalists
have been kicked out, things are officially under
control. Things were also under control when the
C.C.P. had those 6 doctors placed under detention
without charge for trying to warn their general
population about a health issue. Note that they
were not arrested, merely detained without charge.
Chinese police would never arrest people on some
trumped up charge, so they generally avoid doing
that by not charging them with anything. Well
things are safe once again, now that the foreign
journalists have been thrown out and the doctors
have been individually briefed on their
commitment to the party and their “President
for Life unless the money runs out”.
Everything is fine apparently – although I
am still confused as to what happened to those
people who were nailed shut in their apartments.
Either the nails fell out or they quietly slipped
out of the narrative. Everything is fine though
and the phrase “global pandemic”
remains searchable on the intranet –
although “Hantavirus” seems to have
quickly vanished into thin air.
Well yes there
was that little rat thing but you can only get
that virus if you are eating rats. So hey, don’t
even worry about it okay? Everything is massively
under control and if everyone could just hold off
from eating any more vermin things should be all
quiet on the Western Front. Should be fine.
Unless maybe a
lab has a security breach, as happened with SARS
when it was traced back to a laboratory in
Beijing.
But that’s
just a tin foil theory since the laboratory less
than 300 metres away from the Wuhan market, that
may or may not have had rats, was perfectly
secure. They didn’t sell any monkeys to the
market either, or bats. So don’t worry. No
humans could ever breach their security. It was
all the fault of the foreign journalists.
This week the
eating of wild animals has been banned over there.
Yeah, so just the domestic ones now.
So no change
there.
Over in the
United States of Armed conspiracy theories, State
Department auditors are beginning to regret that
$13 billion dollars lost through unidentified
corruption in Iraq, when the U.S. military
decided to oversee development aid. Wow, that
turned out well didn’t it? Possibly, at this
moment in time, better use may have been put to
those funds. Like another golf tour for the
President, developing the opioid industry or even
more investment in defence contracts –
except that in investing billions in global
“defence” the U.S.A. seems to have
forgotten the first and fundamental level of
taking care of your citizens – a functional
public health system.
Still not sure
how all the millions of homeless people plan on
isolating themselves though. Shooting at the
virus seems to have yielded only limited results,
although that is not going to stop Republican
voters. In times like this our best defence is
simply common sense. On that note I fear that
President Trump is now in deep, deep trouble.
By the way
that little guy in North Korea is still firing
off rockets, just that things have been put into
perspective now. That must be disappointing not
to make the headlines on the global security
front. Still I’d wager that the safest
country on this globe is probably North Korea at
this precise point in time.
In India the
entire country seems to be stumbling about in a
bad dream. There is limited access to water,
overcrowded slums and plenty of homeless people
on the streets with nowhere to isolate. Prime
Minister Modi has learned from the Chinese
example though and is busy developing this entire
global virus thing into a Hindi parable of
nationalist pride and heroic military proactivity.
It’ll be fine. He certainly will not need to
keep any more Muslims out once this thing kicks
off. Police are ready to beat any trouble makers
with those long batons that they carry. Pretty
much what they do in any crisis. Concern is
circulating that good Hindus will need to share
this virus with lower caste Dalits and Harijans
– which must be disappointing for them.
They are
tracking the virus daily while those national
rape statistics are once again moved carefully
into the background. Luckily men are in charge of
statistics, so not much change there either.
Well that is
about it. I won’t mention Italy as that is
just too heart wrenching. No, that is not satire.
We should all
be safe however as we bought loads of toilet
paper and put on face masks made in China.
Kia kaha team.
Keep laughing.
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