Hollywood loves the virus outbreak movies, with some of these viruses turning people into zombies whose sole purpose is to kill or to run into a wall repeatedly.
The fascination with this genre is reflective on society’s fears that one day we will encounter a virus or some kind of disease that will be so powerful that it will wipe out millions of people. Worse, many fear their brains will turn into goo and they will be left doomed to shuffle along the streets, snarling and growling.
Such thoughts of impending doom is not so far fetched if we consider the Black Death.
This was a devastating pandemic of bubonic plague that struck Europe and Asia in the mid-1300s. The plague arrived in Europe in October 1347, when 12 ships from the Black Sea docked at the Sicilian port of Messina.
People gathered on the docks were met with a horrifying surprise: most sailors aboard the ships were dead, and those still alive were gravely ill and covered in black boils.
Over the next five years, the Black Death would kill more than 20 million people in Europe – almost one-third of the continent’s population.
Today, viruses are fortunate – they travel in style on board airplanes, reaching its destinations much quicker than in the days of ships.
It is therefore not surprising that the world is reacting in shock to the coronavirus, while the Chinese are being treated, sadly, as mutants from a scary planet.
This is after all a scary virus, which has nothing to do with the alcoholic beverage or the hit song My Sharona if you were wondering.
First described in detail in the 1960s, the coronavirus gets its name from a distinctive corona or ‘crown’ of sugary proteins that projects from the envelope surrounding the particle.
Of late, the death toll from the coronavirus has exceeded that of the severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) outbreak in 2002 and 2003 in mainland China.
During the Sars outbreak, 349 people died in mainland China. Take note, this has nothing to do with our South African Revenue Services, even though thinking of it may produce symptoms of nausea, severe headaches and fever.
Is the coronavirus in South Africa? Who knows. Who will treat the patients? That is another good question.
After all, we cannot even keep the lights on or pick up waste without making a literal mess of everything.
The government identified the Tembisa Hospital as one of three institutions identified in Gauteng to treat coronavirus cases, along with Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital and Steve Biko Academic Hospital.
Great. So what is your chance then of really surviving? Remember, this is the same hospital that is only just recovering from antibiotic-resistant infections that caused the deaths of 10 babies.
On top of that, according to the DA, Tembisa simply has no space to isolate any coronavirus patients. Good luck if you end up there with the virus because you don’t know what poses the greater danger – the virus or the medical treatment.
Reality is we do not need this latest scare. We are just recovering from the listeriosis hysteria. Remember that drama? Those with fever or muscle aches or diarrhea were scrambling to find a doctor out of fear they have contracted the disease, only to discover they ate a bad pie.
Yes, this same country that got its world rocked by polony now wants to deal with Mr Coronavirus. Polony still has a bad rap, like our former president who has been treated for some or other mysterious medical condition.
Before all this drama of a pandemic, there was also the time when we feared the cow glaring at us had mad cow disease, or that the bird in your garden was carrying the avian flu.
This is the time we are living in, waiting in dread for the next plague to consume us, as we battle coughs and zombie-like symptoms (some people in this country already display such tendencies without even being sick).
May we remain alert as we chew slowly on our polony sandwich, eyeing the cows and birds suspiciously as the candle flickers deep into the night.
