I am slowly but surely going crazy.
For more than 2 years now, all we have heard about is the ruddy virus! It dominates the news, it dominates our social conversations and shows no signs of going away anytime soon.
I certainly am no scientist, like 99% of us, but that has not stopped people from pontificating as though they are professors of virology, or know someone who is an authority on where it came from, how it’s transmitted and what the vaccine will do or fail to do.
When you’re young you know everything.
Or to look at it another way, you don’t know what you don’t know.
As the years go by you learn that you don’t know everything.
You know what you don’t know.
I have got to such an advanced age that I know practically nothing, but I am prepared to put my faith in the hands of the medical fraternity, the people who delivered the smallpox and polio vaccines and have protected me from yellow fever, malaria and hepatitis, mended broken bones and saved my life after a near-fatal childhood accident.
When I express this opinion, some peer down their noses at me as though I’m the village idiot.
And this is not the tinfoil hat and lizard people believers, this is my own family!
Oooh, they say, we’ll wait a bit longer before we go for a jab.
They might as well say they’re going to avoid roads because they might get run over by a bus.
Well, you know what? It might just happen.
Getting run over by a bus, that is.
There are lots of things you shouldn’t do because things might go wrong, like swimming in the sea, playing with dogs or driving a car.
But there sure as hell wouldn’t be much point to life if you spent it in bed with the blankets over your head.
A colleague’s 31-year-old son is desperately ill from Covid. Not at death’s door, but not a happy chappie. My wife had Covid in February and was a little sick, unlike her walking partner – same age, same level of health – who ended up on oxygen. Rose’s 92-year-old aunt has just recovered fully. My point is, you just don’t know what it’s going to do and who it’s going to do it to.
So my approach is – play it safe. I’m 70 years old, I’m not going to play in the traffic and hope I don’t get run over. Two jabs Rose and I have had and if there’s a third down the line and a vaccine passport, so be it.
Nobody has yet convinced me of the benefits of avoiding the vaccine. All they can say is, a lot is not generally known about the long-term effects of mRNA vaccines (possibly true, but they’ve just been developed).
I cannot take seriously the theories that they will render men and women sterile to reduce world population or kill us off. How do they know?
I have to believe the statistics as illustrated by the graphic below, issued by Groote Schuur Hospital last week, which point overwhelmingly to the chances of severe illness being lessened enormously by having the vaccine.
What I take particular issue with is the uncertainty and fear that such wild talk produces, from both sides of the argument who know far less than is good for them.
What we can agree on is that the economy has been changed in ways we never imagined 2 years ago (and not all bad), masks on children are ridiculous and I can’t understand a word anyone is saying on TV anymore while they mumble through their masks.
However, a friend in New Zealand who is also fed up with the whole business emailed me that he and his mates in a retirement home there believe this must be the smartest virus ever:
• It knows distance: At 1.5 metres from someone it drops to the ground, but any closer and it will kill you.
• It can count: As long as there are no more than 5 in a room you are safe, any more than that it will kill you.
• It knows what building it is in: If you’re in a supermarket you’re ok, but if you are at a restaurant or old age home it will kill you.
• It knows if you are eating: If you are eating you can take your mask off in a restaurant, but if you are not eating you had better put your mask on.
• It knows whether you are standing or sitting in a pub/club: If you are sitting and drinking you will be ok, but if you stand up and drink it will kill you.
• It knows the difference between talking and singing: If you talk you will be ok, but if you sing it will kill you.
• It knows the difference between instruments: If you play drums you will be safe, but if you play a flute it will kill you.
• It knows the difference between church and protests: If you protest you will be ok, but if you go to church it will kill you.
• It knows if you are an essential worker or not: If you’re an essential worker you can go to work and be safe even though you deal with many different people every day, but if you are an office worker and you work inside with the same people every day, you had better work from home or it will kill you.
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