At last: something we are really good at

Did I hear someone say: “About time too.”

We may never have won the Eurovision Song Contest, we may be rubbish at football and we may even not be much cop at running a country. But when it comes to the current COVID19 case rate table, we are right up there with the best – or if you prefer… the worst! With 92.4 cases per 100,000 of the population we come joint third with Croatia, behind just Spain and France. And we jump up into second place, right behind Spain, when it comes to elderly patients.

I don’t care for articles splattered with figures, particularly those dealing with the current pandemic, so I’ll confine my remarks to the generally accepted notion that we “ain’t done good”. Speaking personally, I see far too few people masked up or selfisolating, particularly in shops and supermarkets. When I remarked on this to a good friend recently, he replied: “Yes I know, we just don’t like being told what to do.”

I see, so you’d prefer to risk a very nasty and painful death rather than take a few simple precautions to minimise the prospect? OK that’s obviously a rhetorical question, but relevant nonetheless.

When we heard that “Forrest Trump” had contracted the virus my wife observed: “You couldn’t make that up.” True, but I loved a tweet that was circulating in the ether not long after the news broke. It went: “No problem, just give him an injection of bleach and he’ll be fine.” Talk about, hoist with his own petard.

It may well be macho to spurn stuff like face masks and social spacing, but it’s not so clever when the chickens come home to roost. Trump struck down last week, might I wonder whether it will be Bolsonaro next? We have quite a few Trumps and Bolsonaros around my neck of the woods. The other evening I heard two 30 something men arguing in the street outside a local bar (while both clutching opened bottles of beer) about the efficacy or otherwise of face masks and visors. Neither was wearing either, by the way.

And help in deciding what or if to wear self-protection is certainly not coming from our sagacious politicians. Check the PM’s comment when we were being warned way back in July about a second wave of the virus. He reputedly retorted: “Waves are only found in the sea.” I wonder what he’d say now, when the death toll is in the 50s? That is up from just nine in the first blast of the virus.

But with all these negative figures coming out I have only, so far, met one person who has actually contracted COVID19. He was a 60 something guy from St Julian’s. He told me he felt pretty rough for about four days, retained his senses of smell and taste, and then gradually got better. He likened the experience to that of getting a heavy cold. He claimed to have no after effects. Mind you, he is a fairly fit and robust individual with no underlying conditions like asthma or diabetes to complicate matters.

Still we well know the virus is killing people right here in Malta and in rather alarming numbers. It all sounds frankly rather scary. Roll on the vaccine, I say.