Shut your eyes and it disappears

The older I get the more incredulous I become

Iam simply staggered by the number of, apparently uncertified, people who still believe that the Covid-19 pandemic is simply not happening: “Covid 19, what’s that? Never heard of it.”

I can well believe that professional idiots like Donald Trump, Jair Bolsonaro (the president of Brazil) and another bozo, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (the pres of Mexico) have ulterior reasons for their Covid denial. But now I’m hearing that some reasonably intelligent people are also starting to pretend it isn’t happening.

A good friend of mine, who has children living in Germany and Australia (not at the same time, you understand) they are different kids… I think. Well anyway, he informed me that his 28-yearold daughter, who – incidentally – has a PhD in chemistry, had told him, via Skype, that she was convinced that Covid-19 was all part of a western plot to bring down flourishing eastern economies like China.

And if that wasn’t loopy enough, his other daughter, the younger one (I don’t think this one has a Ph-anything) who resides down-under in Melbourne, informed him that the evidence of New Zealand’s comparative freedom from the disease, proves that the whole thing is a monumental mirage, dreamt up by left-wing influencers in the US in order to rob Trump of the presidential election. When he gave me this latter piece of information, I’m afraid my reply had to be the obvious: “Well it worked, so be joyful!” I should add, this was after I had stopped laughing.

I’m reliably informed that there is also a vocal minority of strident Covid nay-sayers right here in Malta. It is apparently based in Paceville and made up of a number of high profile movers and shakers in the entertainment business. And can you blame them? I mean how can you stage a mega house rave for around 1,000 pre-pubescent partygoers while socially distancing and wearing face masks? It’s a nonstarter. Maybe we should start a specific club for non-Covid believers, you know… a bit like the Flat Earth society. They could all meet up at say… the Phoenicia Hotel on the first Tuesday of each month to discuss the latest batch of loony posts on Facebook, Twitter etc… what fun!

I can just see them, huddled around a single cappuccino (with four straws) in the Phoenicia lounge, whispering shocked asides to one another: “Did you hear that the old lady from Balzan who died at Mater Dei last week, did so from pneumonia… and they say (I dunno who ‘they’ are, by the way) on the “Soopair Wan” she gone die from catch it the Co – veed. Which everybody know don’t exist so… ”

You think I’m exaggerating? Believe

me stranger things happen all the time. A few years ago, during the Chinese (yes them again) epidemic of bird flu, legions of people from Adelaide to Afghanistan gave up eating eggs and barbecued chickenflavoured crisps.

I’m ashamed to admit that when Mad Cow disease, Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) was all the rage in the mid 1980s, a relative of mine emptied her freezer of every single joint of meat, including hamburgers and bacon, for fear of contracting the disease and being seen out in the street capering about like a doolally Friesian heifer.

As the great poet/dramatist William Shakespeare – or was it Willie McGonagall – once uttered: “There’s nowt so queer as folk.” So true…