LONDON, U.K. -- First we had epidemic. Then pandemic. Now we have endemic.
Here’s the awful news then: The World Health Organization says the coronavirus “may never go away.” It may just hang around tormenting the world forever, the way the Ebola and the AIDS viruses have.
On that cheery note, fellow sufferers under lockdown, have a great day. Solidarity.
First, the British health secretary cancelled summer. Now it feels as if the WHO has cancelled Christmas, New Year's, Ramadan and Hanukkah all at once.
Trying to be ecumenical here, as I hold back a scream.
Living under lockdown leaves far too much time for reading scary stuff. Like the number of health care workers in this country who have died: 144. And the number of care home workers: 131.
Stop and think about that.
And while you’re at it, think about what happened to Belly Mujinga, a 47-year-old railway ticket officer. You will be disgusted. Sickened.
A well-dressed man, who claimed he had the virus, spat and coughed at her inside London’s Victoria station. She died two weeks later of COVID-19.
Police are now going over CCTV footage and asking witnesses to come forward. She had a daughter, 11 years old.
Belly Mujinga is seen in this undated photo. (Source: Family photo handout PA via CNN)
Maybe we need some trivia to divert our attention from such horror and awfulness.
Something banal, like this morning’s breakfast conversation:
He: “It’s amazing that we’ve had so many clear, sunny days since the lockdown began.” (Positive)
She: “It’s annoying.” (Realistic)
He: “It makes it easier to get out in the morning. When the weather’s nice, I mean.” (Defensive)
She: “Too many people out. Better when it’s rainy.” (Scornful)
Okay, let’s look at famous people who were born on this day. That’s always entertaining.
Happy Birthday Mark Zuckerberg. I wonder if he’ll buy Instagram, or some other high-tech giant, as a little present for himself.
What? He owns Instagram? What about Microsoft?
Cate Blanchett is 51 today. She is such a great actress. I think she deserves an Oscar.
Two already? I don’t get out much.
Albert Einstein was born on May 14. Or as my mother used to say whenever I flunked a math test: “Son, you’re no Albert Einstein.”
Here’s a good one. Think pandemic.
On May 14, 1796 a British doctor by the name of Edward Jenner performed the world’s first vaccination. He scraped cowpox pus from the hands of a milkmaid and inoculated his gardener’s son, in both arms.
The boy not only survived, he became immune.
With that crude experiment, smallpox—the scourge of mankind—was eradicated, and vaccination became a life-saving fixture of medical science.
It took nearly two centuries, but in 1980 the WHO made a historic declaration: “The world and all its people have won freedom from smallpox.”
Let coronavirus be next.
