Nosocomial

Nosocomial. It's the new favourite word of a certain sort of limp-brained intellectual on the right on the UK who used to want to leave the EU and now wants to leave lockdown and social distance at their own discretion. 

Never heard of it? Don't rush to Google just yet, because I will tell you what they think it means, or at least what they want you to think it means. 

By insisting that Covid-19 is 'nosocomial' they'd like you to understand that it is a disease that is native to and to some extent limited to environments like hospitals and care homes; that you are far more likely to get it by visiting the NHS than say Lords Cricket Ground. 

Matt Ridley puts it thus: "If Covid-19 is at least partly a ‘nosocomial’ (hospital-acquired) disease, then the pandemic might burn itself out quicker than expected."

Whoopydoo, eh? 

And indeed, yesterday it was revealed that 20% of infections in the UK appear to have occurred in hospitals and care homes. It was this stat, rather than its all too obvious flipside — 80% didn't — that these eedjits immediately jumped on. 

This sounds very much like a #firstworldproblem anyway. Here in Latin America food markets, sweat shops and so on have been the main hubs, and if people all over the world had been going out to concerts, football matches, schools even, it is almost certain that the hospital-acquired proportion would have been depressed. 

The virus really isn't particular about this. 

Notsonosocomial then.