Coronavirus this.  Coronavirus that.  In-out-in-out-sneeze-it-all-about!  The media is fully of the same stories at the moment. The new C-word.  It’s an epidemic, it’s a pandemic, and we’re all doomed!

A few things worry me about this…..

It’s creating panic.  I was at my local Sainsbury’s yesterday and the car park was full.  As I put my usual selection of comestibles into the car the click-and-collect guy was surprised I’d got everything I wanted.  Why I asked?  “Panic buying”, he said.  “The first customer of the morning bought 16 packs of 6-pack toilet rolls.”  Does anyone need that many toilet rolls?  I suggested we’d be OK because we could just re-cycle copies of the Daily Mail – it’s already full of shit, but I didn’t get a laugh. Perhaps he was a Daily Mail reader?  Either way its pointless being so selfish. If you are going to self-isolate for 14 days you still don’t need that many rolls, or hand-sanitizers do you. If you take them, then everyone else will be without them, the virus will spread further and you’ll be surrounded by the infected.

It’s the perfect opportunity for the Government to bury bad news. How many stories have gone unreported in this media frenzy?  How many Brexit problems will now be blamed on the virus? It’s already started with the Flybe airline collapse.

They say the world of work will change forever.  As more people are encouraged/told to work from home a popular daytime political chat show was suggesting that this will change the face of normal work. We will never return to the old ways. What utter bullshit! Once this is over the return to work will be mandatory. Those wishing to remain at work will be labelled ”shirkers” (The shirker-in-Chief Farrage has already started this). Remember when WWII was raging? Women were “forced” into wartime production.  They were required to “do their bit”.  But when the war ended they were required to return back to the home and give their jobs back to the men.  Capitalism decides what happens with the world of work, and once the virus is vanquished, so will working-from-home.  Enjoy it while you can suckers!

Obviously I’m not advocating we just put on our famous British stiff upper lip, keep calm and carry on.  We need to be sensible.  But being sensible is not a panic response.  This is not the zombie apocalypse, and we’re not the walking dead.