Pandemic’s gone nuclear

LONG before any eventual inquiry, it is clear that we weren’t prepared for a pandemic. But using that as a stick to beat the Government is a bit far-fetched. Of course we weren’t ready; from what I’ve read, there are only about three outbreaks on such a scale per century. Unlike south-east Asia, we’d been lulled by previous false alarms over SARS and swine flu. Nor are we alone in agonising over a lack of personal protective equipment – even a group of German doctors recently staged a naked protest over PPE shortages.

I don’t suppose our civil authorities are today as familiar, say, with the contingency plans in the event of a nuclear missile attack as their predecessors might have been in the ColdWar 1980s.

Even if, for the rest of us, I recall the precautions appeared to amount to little more than putting masking tape on the windows and hiding under the nearest table.

IT is rather terrifying the President of the United States, below, appears to entertain the notion that disinfectant might be worth trialling as a potential inoculation for

Covid-19. But almost as depressing were all the solemn warnings afterwards about the inadvisability of doing so.

Would anyone you know seriously contemplate injecting bleach? And even if such people exist, we cannot legislate for every conceivable act of stupidity.

Nor, more importantly, should

we try to, because it only infantilises the rest of us. It’s enough already that programmes such as Britain’s Got Talent feel the frequent need to flash up “don’t try this at home” messages on screen in case we all then rush outside to set fire to our trousers while walking a tightrope. Diminishing personal responsibility is how you end up with so-called “snowflakes” – an unjust description for an entire age group. And who, where they do exist, are the product of the soppy generation which brought them up. Mine.