This Coronavirus stuff is all going a bit mental isn’t it? When I started hearing about the chaos with loo roll, I couldn’t help but wonder whether severe shitting was involved. But no, this isn’t the case, so maybe people are using rolls of loo paper to build padded cells?

It is hard to keep up and I am not sure who is maddest? Is it the mad people who have bulk bought loo roll, or is it the people who have gone mad because they are so angry at them? We are now at the stage where people are panic buying loo roll before it all runs out because of panic buyers buying loo roll.

Unqualified Views

Finding any sense of normality is needle in the haystack stuff and it appears the media have gone insane with it. For example, the BBC had Nigel Farage on Newsnight giving his opinion. There are people out there who say, “Say what you like about Farage…”, so I will. He is a cunt.

However, I guess it wasn’t him who invited himself onto Newsnight to offer an opinion based on not having any medical qualifications or ever being elected as an MP. What were the BBC thinking of? Time and again I find myself defending the BBC and they always let me down with bizarre attempts at impartiality that look more like fuckwittery.

Then yesterday, I saw a newspaper headline on Twitter. It was trash TV celebrity, Gemma Collins, telling us all to stay calm and have a holiday. The last time I checked, Gemma Collins had no experience in viral outbreaks or a history of biological research but her voice counts, somehow. Perhaps I am wrong. Maybe Gemma is leading the way in coronavirus knowledge?

The experts on the matter seem to disappear amongst a deluge of populist talking heads spouting drivel. So, when the government, namely, Boris Johnson, does get serious, it’s hard to know what to think. That’s the problem with Johnson, he spends so much of his time bullshitting and then laughing it off, it is impossible knowing what to believe.

Johnson did briefly let slip last week when he took a Darwinian view of letting nature take its course. His theory seemed to say that if the sick and elderly take a hit and die, well, that’s just the way it is. At least it will cut down on benefits. He did change his mind though, presumably when someone whispered in his ear that the ones who die also happen to be all the mad old fuckers who voted for him.

Information and Knowledge

What does concern me is that as the crisis has developed, more information and knowledge has come with it. For instance, I didn’t know how good the Italian healthcare system is. It is regularly in the top 5 in terms of care, yet it is now triaging itself senseless. Triaging is another relatively new meaning to me. To keep it simple, it means having to choose who is worth treating. If one of the best health care systems in the world is struggling, we need to get out our mats and pray to the west.

From a personal point of view, I need a bit of a slap for initially believing in populist philosophy. I genuinely thought that (a bit like Johnson) we had to take it on the chin as there is sod all we can do about it. However, after listening to people who study medicine and biology, it is obvious that slowing the inevitable spread of Coronavirus is worth the effort.

There are of course, winners when it comes to coronavirus. Toilet paper manufacturers and hand gel producers will be dishing out loads of overtime to grateful workers. Chelsea FC will be glad that the doors will be locked on their impending humiliation in Munich and there is also the uplifting news that the conservative health minister, Nadine Dorries, got a dose of it. Not that her colleagues will be pleased. She turned up at a Number 10 with all the symptoms but didn’t bother getting diagnosed and self-isolating until afterwards.

A health minister getting coronavirus and not following the guidelines set by her own government is so ridiculous, not even Boris Johnson could make it up.

Next week: Joey Essex tells us how to cure coronavirus