Don't be a 'covidiot'

THE COVID-19 emergency has given the English language yet another new word, a ‘covidiot’ is a person who breaks the rules with scant regard for fellow members of the community.

According to the Urban Dictionary, a covidiot is: “Someone who ignores the warnings regarding public health or safety. A person who hoards goods, denying them from their neighbours.”

Examples of covidiots are panic buyers and stockpilers who cleared the shelves of supermarkets despite government warnings that there was plenty for all and shortages were being created by such anti-social behaviour.

It is estimated that Britain has stockpiled £1 billion of food and those who scooped up perishable goods are now throwing it in rubbish bins.

There are also those who fail to recognise the official lockdown and social distancing. In the UK people can legally go outdoors to exercise but remember Mothering Sunday? Police using loudhailers had to disperse sunbathers in a London park, shouting: “Can you all go home please?

It’s not a holiday, it’s a lockdown.”

And who can forget China and the very beginning of the novel coronavirus emergency? The secretive state attempted to keep it under wraps, punishing a doctor for telling colleagues - the Chinese authorities even told the World Health Organisation there was no evidence of humans infecting humans.

On January 14, the WHO tweeted: “Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human to human transmission of the novel coronavirus 2019-nCoV identified in Wuhan, China.”