Back to Black
I feel more at risk from what’s in my fridge than the latest pandemic from China.
Conundrum of the week is how concerned we should all be about coronavirus. Authorities have warned for years that it is only a matter of time and circumstances until a pandemic sweeps the Earth and carries off millions of us. Looking on the bright side, dying is a guaranteed way for each of us to permanently lower our carbon footprints, but there must be some baby steps we could try first.
One problem with the question about how concerned we should be by coronavirus is that humans in general, and the media in particular, love to embrace apocalyptic visions. For those who prefer evidencebased decision-making, it is difficult to rate coronavirus on a scale of threats.
A grainy pic that might be a virus under a microscope, or possibly the Milky Way seen from Mars, is not a clue for most of us. We tend to rely on authorities such as the World Health Organisation, whose current advice – if you are not handling dead or live animals in Wuhan – amounts to common sense.
Overlaying the whole episode is the sound of that boy crying wolf because neither the Sars virus nor bird flu got him. Chances are, coronavirus will not get him, either.
However, the single biggest wildcard in this whole episode is China itself. It is either hiding something or making a genuine attempt at transparency, but it is not working well, perhaps because Chinese authorities do not have a great deal of experience in it.
We can only sympathise with the public, medical professionals, authorities and everyone in the affected area of China, and elsewhere, who is battling fear and frustration as well as the virus itself. Personally, I am more anxious about my chances of getting ptomaine poisoning from the opened tin of plums in our fridge than becoming the victim of a pandemic. However, in the spirit of co-operation, I have committed to not eating bats or snakes and to washing my hands. It is the least I can do.
Having, in last week’s column, defended the right of billionaires to exist, I must say that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman seems a piece of work, doesn’t he?
He and a fellow billionaire, Amazon founder
Jeff Bezos, were in the news after the Guardian revealed that cybersecurity investigators believe bin Salman hacked Bezos’ phone.
Bezos owns the Washington Post, which, in late 2018, learnt that its columnist, Jamal Khashoggi, had been dismembered in the Saudi embassy in Ankara, Turkey, before his body parts were dissolved. The newspaper vigorously pursued the possibility that his assassination could be sheeted back to the Saudi leader. Five men have since been sentenced to death for the killing because it seems that ordering people’s executions is a little like eating salted peanuts – once you start it is hard to stop.
It comes as a surprise to no one that none of the five condemned men are in bin Salman’s inner circle, prompting United Nations special rapporteur Agnès Callamard to say that the masterminds of the killing have been barely touched by the investigation and trial.
I wish petrol bowsers had country-of-origin labels on them for the fuel they dispense. That would enable me to add to my extensive list of personal boycotts all oil-exporting nations whose treatment of critics involves bone saws and acid.
By necessity, diplomacy is usually conducted in shades of grey. However, if the state-sanctioned murder of Khashoggi does not cross that moral line at which black and white, right and wrong are so clearly delineated that no country should be able to confuse them and look the other way, what does?
It seems that ordering executions is a little like eating salted peanuts – once you start it is hard to stop.