Monday, December 06, 2021

Leprosy Bell

Professor Tim Spector, founder of the Zoe Covid symptoms app, has just estimated that around a quarter of common colds people have been suffering from in recent months were probably covid. 


There are sometimes not-so-hidden incentives to keep it hidden — unacknowledged, at least in public.

There have been several cases of rather sudden deaths of people we know in the past couple of years which have not been attributed to covid, but perhaps ought to have been.  

There appears to be a social stigma attached to the pandemic pathogen in Guatemala which only seems to worsen as the collective response dissolves into more personal etiquettes. 

Death by covid portends an undignified send off. It can also threaten the livelihoods of surviving close family members, many of whom run businesses out of their homes. 

Attitudes adapt as we are no longer quite so all in this together and the sick and dying pop up as an unfortunate reminder of a not entirely distant threat we are either ignoring or at least being told to ignore as best we can.

Last year it was 'the moment you feel it coming on call us and we will come and pick you up and take you to that nice new facility'. Now it is 'the moment you feel it coming on we don't want to know about you, just stay indoors, out of sight...go away.'

And 'you are probably unvaxed and that has to be your own fault, not ours.'

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