As Victorians start to get comfortable with phrases like "charnel house" and "necropolis" it is time to take a look at one of our near neighbours to see how they're doing in the whole pandemic. To the north of Australia is a large, mountainous island the right half of which is occupied by the nation of Papua New Guinea. So far Papua New Guinea has managed to keep reported cases of COVID-19 to a minimum by the simple expedient of not conducting any testing. PNG authorities are also fortunate that there are so many other reasons why people might suddenly die ranging from tuberculosis to tribal warfare.
Unfortunately it has proved impossible to maintain this positive start. According to this blog's tropical hell hole reporter the government has been forced to introduce strict limitations on human contact and social gatherings. For the first time in the nation's history they have banned crusades. So if you were planning on gathering your vassals, raising the Banner of Christ and making war on the infidel I'm afraid that you're going to have to give Papua New Guinea a wide berth.
At this point it might be instructive to mention that due to quarantine requirements our tropical hell hole reporter is currently doing her reporting by looking out a hotel window. More specifically she is looking through the bottom of a wine bottle and out a hotel window. Nevertheless she was adamant that no crusades were taking place in the street her hotel was situated on.
It isn't just crusades that are going to suffer either. Pretty much every sort of war is going to become incredibly difficult when you have to observe social distancing rules. It's difficult to launch a bayonet charge when you have to stop 1.5 metres from your objective. Airstrikes will be needed to drop hand sanitiser on the enemy simply so we can come to close quarters. Occupational Health and Safety Officers are going to be the most feared people on the battlefield.
With peace in our time thus inadvertently achieved I took a quick look back at how my homeland is doing. The answer is, patchy. Some parts of it are doing rather well, specifically those parts that are refusing to let the other parts visit. As an inhabitant of one of those other parts I feel somewhat miffed while guiltily admitted I would be demanding the same if I lived in a more disease free zone. In NSW new cases are still popping up but even with the fresh outbreaks we've seen nothing on the scale of Victoria where their infection rate has has if nothing else given some of our dodgier retirement homes an excuse for their death toll.
I tried to contact this blog’s mounting death toll reporter for a complete update but she’d called in sick.
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