It’s difficult not to wonder if there isn’t just a hint of hysterical giddiness (and hypocrisy) about the coronavirus sweeping the globe.
Plagues and pestilence are no laughing matter - they’re certainly not to be sneezed at - but it’s difficult not to wonder if there isn’t just a hint of hysterical giddiness about the coronavirus sweeping the globe.
The world, though, has survived a variety of super bugs - from bird flu, swine flu, Sars - both before and after the Rogue Unit, Mers , Ebola from sub-Saharan Africa and Zika from mosquitoes in Brazil. HIV and Aids are no longer regarded as a death sentence in this country, thanks to the incredible efforts that have been put in through private public partnerships over the past 25 years, but rather as a manageable chronic disease. Yet, in 2018, according to Statistics SA, 115 167 South Africans alone died - 22% of all our recorded deaths that year - from Aids related deaths. Thirteen years before, the death toll was almost triple that, at 289 833.
In other countries, if someone who even looks remotely Chinese coughs in a crowded place, the venue empties faster than FNB Stadium after a rugby Test. Here at home, as cartoonist Zapiro suggested this week, Jacob Zuma might self-isolate for the foreseeable duration of his corruption trial.
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