Kelly’s Eye
THE absurd American TV evangelist Jim Bakker was back in the news last week trying to flog some sort of liquid silver solution as a cure for coronavirus. Usually you’d shake your head in wonder at how anyone would be credulous enough to believe him. But after seeing supermarket shelves here stripped of toilet rolls and dry pasta, the old fraud would be forgiven for wondering whether there’s a market for his ministry in Britain.
Each succeeding day seems more unreal than the preceding one.The last time this country felt so suddenly dislocated from common sense was in the bizarre fortnight that followed Diana’s death.Then, as now, most of us knew instinctively that the reaction lacked a sense of proportion, but found ourselves overwhelmed by the sort of temporary collective breakdown that requires only a minority of the most strident voices to provoke.
On social media, for instance, the majority of people I know post toilet roll-related memes and generally prefer humour to bleakness. But for others, such a reaction is the height of irresponsibility. Many are so blinded by their hatred of Boris Johnson and bitterness about leaving the EU that coronavirus simply offers a big new stick with which to beat the PM and Leave voters.
Yes, coronavirus can be fatal and a vaccine is yet to be found for it. But however unpalatable or even callous it might sound, the truth is that respiratory viruses like it kill hundreds of thousands of people globally each year, the elderly and the weaker always suffer most, and that is despite existing flu vaccines, like the ones available on the NHS. Even once this immediate danger passes, people will still die from such conditions.
Shutting down society on the scale being demanded is unprecedented in our lifetimes. And even if it succeeds short-term, what if the virus flares up again later, as many predict? Everyday life cannot be put on hold indefinitely, much less business and the world economy.
Ultimately, to coin a phrase, we are going to have to find ways to keep calm and carry on.