Next time there’s an epidemic, here are the questions we should ask the World Health Organisation
HEY, it’s official – the global Covid pandemic panic is over!
We’re not all going to die, after all. Well, we ARE all going to die, obvs.
But not next week on a ventilator in a Nightingale hospital.
That’s all according to the boss of the World Health Organisation, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. (Go on, try saying that when you’ve got a bad cough.)
Anyway, Ted says the emergency is over but we’ve all got to beware.
Because the next thing that comes along might be nastier than Covid.
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So we must remember the lessons we learned during our pandemic.
Hmm. Now what might they be?
The first could be that masks have little effect on restricting the virus.
Not even when they’re worn in hospital. I still see people wearing them, mind.
People stricken with Covid nostalgia, I suppose.
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The next is that the constant sanitising of hands with raw alcohol isn’t that much use.
Transmission from surfaces is not the main danger.
Then there’s social distancing.
Those queues outside Morrisons where we had to stand three metres apart.
The jury is out on that. Some say it may have helped a bit. Others say it was no use at all.
And lockdowns? Ahh, that’s the big one.
There is a growing feeling that not only was lockdown of virtually no use at all, but may have made matters a lot worse for the future.
During lockdown our bodies didn’t experience the same level of pathogens.
Sinister labs
In short, prolonged lockdowns could compromise our immune systems.
This could make it harder for people to fight other diseases.
And then there’s the damage to our children’s education.
The vast and continuing cost to the economy of everything being shut.
And the lethal consequences for people who didn’t have their cancers or heart disease diagnosed.
Oh, and another thing. When the next pandemic arrives, don’t believe the Chinese when they tell you it definitely didn’t escape from one of their sinister labs.
As many now think, that’s the most likely explanation.
The World Health Organisation supported masks, lockdown, sanitising and social distancing.
Let loose
It also refused to entertain the idea that the virus was let loose from a Chinese lab.
So here’s the most important thing to bear in mind the next time a pandemic strikes.
We all need to take much, much less notice of what we’re told by the World Health Organisation.
And less notice of what committees such as Sage, comprised of epidemiologists and commie health harridans, tell us to do.
Yes, we should listen to the advice.
And maybe say thank you very much, that’s terribly interesting.
But we should make sure that the long-term view is taken into account.
Saving 20,000 lives from Covid one year is of no real use if it causes 30,000 lives to be lost once the pandemic is over through diseases that were never treated.
We need to take account of the effects of enforced isolation on the mental health of the population, and on our children.
As well as on our immune systems.
In short, we need to take a rounded view.
And not go berserk with restrictions just because the WHO believes the sky is falling in.
Glastonbury – the old folks’ home of festivals
THE full Glastonbury line-up has just been announced.
Do you remember when the festival was cool?
And young people went to it? When there were bands playing without the benefit of incontinence pads? When people could actually afford to go?
Now it’s just a convocation of thousands of sad middle-aged, middle-class liberal t****rs who want to relive their youth by listening to Rick bloody Astley or Elton John.
Or the bloated, gurning, dead-on-their-feet Guns N’ Roses.
I’d rather attend a week-long insurance seminar.
Mount mob's shame
I DON’T know if you saw those photographs of the mess left on Everest by mountaineers.
One part of the majestic mountain resembled a landfill site near Rotherham.
I wouldn’t blame the Nepalese government from banning all future ascents of Everest.
Given that today’s mountaineers have so little respect for the environment.
IT’S that cliché again – go woke, go broke.
The Spanish have suddenly discovered it.
Elected themselves a radical leftie government that pushed through pro-transgender measures.
Spanish women got very cross about this.
And in the local elections the lefties got absolutely trounced.
There will now be a new election in July – and the Right is set to win.
Across Europe, woke gender measures are not welcomed. They are decisively rejected.
A.I. not so savvy
A BUNCH of computer experts have just issued a warning suggesting that AI could doom the human race.
Yeah, yeah, I know – you haven’t got enough to worry about right now.
I have a suspicion the threat posed is being a bit overstated right now.
All the bots can do at the moment is generate responses from information they’ve been trained on.
And ChatGPT is laughably useless at actually thinking for itself.
You never hear of AI arguing with the human bosses, do you? Or doing something we don’t want them to do.
That’s because it isn’t really “intelligent”. Just a slightly upmarket version of the Yellow Pages.
Keep it up, Luton
HUGE respect to Luton Town and their manager Rob Edwards.
To go from the National League to the Premier League in ten years is pretty impressive.
Only one club can eclipse that record – Northampton Town, who went from the old fourth division to the top tier in just FIVE years.
What did they do next? They went back down to the fourth division over the next four seasons.
I wonder if Luton can beat THAT record?
HERE is something to cheer – a British success!
Apparently we almost lead Europe at nanny state interference in our lives.
Only Hungary has stricter rules telling you what you can and can’t eat and why you should never drink alcohol, and don’t even think about smoking.
We’re second. It’s interesting, isn’t it?
There was a time when the UK was known for the fiercely independent streak of its people.
A race that would never be bossed around by dictators, like they were in most of the Continent.
Not any more.
These days we do as we’re bidden and say, “Thank you, sir.”
Eye on bully Serbs
THE Serbs are getting a bit lairy again.
Bullying the tiny Muslim state of Kosovo which they think belongs to them.
Those of you with good memories will remember the outrages committed by the Serbs against the Bosnians and Albanians.
They have been emboldened by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
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Russia is a big, nasty, ally of Serbia.
And the lesson is, if we let Putin win in Ukraine, other bullies will take heart. And try it on.