AN ILL WIND ?

Of course, the one issue on most people`s mind at the moment is the corona virus - now officially a pandemic.  And it doesn`t need me to go on about it as the wall-to-wall 24 hour news bulletins themselves go on about little else.  But still there are some things that cross my mind as anxieties grow daily about what its effect will be on ourselves as individuals, our friends and family and our way of life.

It`s tempting to shrug it off - these things happen to other people, don`t they? - or even to treat it lightheartedly as a mask for the anxiety that lies beneath. ("I expect the manufacturers of liquid soap are rubbing their hands in glee") but it`s obviously too serious an issue to be swept to the back of one`s mind.

But perhaps - pious hope, I know - that this ill wind might, after all, bring some good in the long run.  Now I don`t know why but I honestly can`t remember whether past epidemics (SARS, MERS, swine flu and the rest) brought the same degree of anxiety as this one does;  maybe it`s the `social media` and the unending news output that has brought corona virus to the forefront, whereas previous virus issues received perhaps a little less attention.  Either that or maybe this one is really the most serious we have encountered for a generation....or maybe my memory of past instances of this nature has faded along with loads of other memories.

So where`s the ill wind blowing some good in all this?  What`s the pious hope?  Well, maybe just maybe if/when the nations of this planet get through it all there will be something of a global inquest as to how it happened, how it was dealt with and how to avoid it happening again.  More piously I hope that this experience might have the effect of bringing the nations of the world closer together, for if viruses like this one know no borders, no boundaries, why should we not use this experience to break down at least some of the entrenched positions and barriers that beset the world and seek a better way of living together?

I should know better, of course, but even if we ourselves might not - then at least hope springs eternal.