This is a real test for ‘generation me’
It’s now up to the younger and stronger to repay the older generation’s sacrifices
You can tell this coronavirus thing has got serious. Not because the Prime Minister has published a “battle plan”, but because the French have banned kissing. Not snogging their mistresses, obviously. There are limits. But those two-cheek pecks have been suspended, as has the Anglo-saxon handshake, while virologists figure out whether we’ll all be dead in six weeks.
Meanwhile, we are supposed to bump elbows in greeting, and trying to master Ging Gang Goolie.
Not me. Frankly, I was damned if I was going to panic. No way would I be scouring the internet for a stupid face mask that offered no protection.
As for the global markets, a few thousand people catch a cold from bat soup in China and the Dow Jones is in intensive care before you can say, “Bless you!” What is wrong with people? In the West, life is so comfortable that we have forgotten what real peril is.
Bang on cue, my New York hypochondriac friend Facetimed me, triumphant. Sheryl had managed to purchase five hazmat suits to protect her family. “What, those weird decontamination outfits they wear in alien films?” I asked.
“Yeah, those. You think I’m ridiculous, right?”
Of course I thought she was ridiculous. And then I went to Waitrose. Picking up some hand sanitiser seemed like a sensible precaution, particularly as I was heading into London. The shelves were not just empty, they appeared to have been ransacked. It was eerie. The surge of relief when I spotted the one remaining antibacterial liquid which, in the melee, had found its way into the shampoos, was almost overwhelming.
This competitive fear of not being fearful enough – or less well-protected than others – took me by surprise. Covid-19 is contagious, but so is panic.
Overnight, I became obsessive. I bought rubbing alcohol to sterilise our electronics. I used my sleeve to open doors. I lectured my family on handwashing. The touching sight of a line of women at the basins in the John Lewis loos, all silently mouthing the first verse of God Save the Queen as they soaped fingers and thumbs, was proof that I was not alone in doing my bit.
But it was more than that. Something atavistic kicked in. People started stockpiling food and medical supplies. One London pharmacy was caught selling a £1.99 hand sanitiser for just under thirty quid. When I managed to bag a box of antimicrobial wipes on Amazon, I found myself gloating. So superior to antibacterial!
What had got into me? I was behaving exactly like the kind of selfish, panic-stricken nightmare I usually despise.
The coronavirus presents us with a challenge that is as much about the duty we owe to one another, as it is about preventing its spread. Britons will need to show stoicism and resourcefulness – virtues we may suspect are in short supply if not extinct. Is our selfish, individualistic society up to the challenge?
Despite what you may have read, this is not the Black Death. Many thousands who have already had it are now recovered. Eight out of 10 people will have only a mild illness (worth bearing in mind when you are fighting over the last packet of Nurofen).
Children rarely catch it, thank goodness. The people at the greatest risk are the elderly and those with compromised immune systems.
To be blunt, if a healthy person with coronavirus symptoms turns up at A&E, chances are they will infect a vulnerable person who won’t be able to fight it off. Hospital places should rightfully belong to the very sick, who will need all the help they can get.
As Marc Lipsitch, the director of the US Centre for Communicable Disease Dynamics, puts it: “The emphasis has shifted from stopping them from infecting us to stopping us from infecting each other.”
Can the “Me” generation, who have never been denied anything in their privileged lives, be relied upon to selfisolate or will they start whingeing how “stressy” it all is?
The current mumps epidemic shows what we’re up against. Two of my friend’s children, both in their 20s, are among thousands of students who have suffered in the past year from this horrible disease. Mumps had largely died out, but there was a fall in the uptake of the MMR vaccine in the Nineties. My friend’s son and daughter were both vaccinated, but it wasn’t enough to protect them.
Those of us who obediently did as we were told, now see our youngsters put in danger by self-righteous antivaxxers who decided they knew better than the medical establishment. Their little darlings would be protected, or so they thought, because enough parents would make sure their children had the jab and thus guarantee herd immunity.
Only it hasn’t worked out like that. Believing that not vaccinating little Harry or Hettie is more important than the chance they could get, and spread, measles, is the height of selfish individualism – one of the most aggressive sicknesses of the modern age. Well, the coronavirus now demands that we take one for the herd. If we all do as we’re told, if we pull together and change our behaviour, then lives will be saved.
Even if everyone just washed their hands it would reduce the spread of infection by more than half. That’s an awful lot of beloved grandparents not put in mortal danger.
It’s now up to the younger and stronger to repay the sacrifices of the older generation with sacrifices of their own. To prove that, when it really matters, the “Me” generation can become “Us”. Too many lives are in their sanitised hands.