So the sudden outbreak in Adelaide turned out to be far less of a concern than most people thought. I say "most people" because, since it happened in Adelaide, I wasn't really concerned at all. I suppose it is good news for the people of Adelaide and I shouldn't really be churlish because I've been deprived of dramatic material for my blog. I had hoped to fill a couple of these plague updates detailing Adelaide's desperate struggle against infection and the human tragedy involved. As it is it turns out it was a false alarm and the human tragedy levels barely rose above what is normal for people forced to live in Adelaide. At least my Tasmanian correspondent will be pleased.
When for a brief, glorious moment it looked like the word Adelaide might be synonymous with hecatomb I had formed a crack journalistic team to cover events on the ground. Spearheading this blog's reporting efforts would be my Tasmanian correspondent (swiftly renamed Tasmanian and Parts of Australia so Remote they Might as Well be Tasmania correspondent). Unfortunately those plans ran into a slight hitch. The conversation with my Tasmanian etc etc correspondent went something like this.
Me: Pack a bag, you're being deployed into the field in twenty four hours.
TC: How the hell did you get this number?
Me: My tech support are tracking you by satellite. Get ready, I'm sending you to Adelaide.
TC: The hell you are.
Me: May I remind you of certain videos in my possession?
TC: In the name of God please don't send me to Adelaide! Think of my children.
Me: Are you afraid of catching COVID?
TC: Is there COVID in Adelaide?
Fortunately before I had to activate the mind control chip my tech support installed in her skull under the pretext of a neck injury news filtered out from Adelaide that the whole thing had been a misunderstanding and they weren't dying like flies after all. I let my correspondent off the hook on the understanding that she tell me the next exciting thing that happens in Tasmania, I may never hear from her again. Just on the subject of mind control chips, I've got a bit of a stiff neck myself. I took the opportunity created by transferring all my assets to a trust under my tech support's control to ask them if they had done the same thing to me. They assured me they hadn't and sent me instructions on how to remove one of my kidneys almost painlessly.
With nothing much happening in Adelaide (and there you have the history of the city in a sentence) I cast around for something else to pad out this blog entry. Fortunately Big Pharma has stepped up to the plate. Suddenly we're almost swamped with vaccines. Pfizer, has announced that its vaccine is 90% effective and is good to go as soon as those interfering busybodies at the FDA stop asking awkward questions. The elderly will be prioritised once a vaccine actually starts hitting the shelves (some still non specific point in the future). This is in keeping with Pfizer's usual business model. They should label the vaccine "from the people who brought you Viagra!"
Not to be outdone the Russians have announced that they have a vaccine even more effective than the Pfizer model (but does it help you maintain an erection?) whereas the Chinese haven't bothered announcing how effective their vaccine is, they've just been sticking it into their population anyway. You can do that when you have a billion people to play with. If it works you're a world beater and if not, plenty more where they came from.
I must admit I would be slightly more inclined to trust a Russian vaccine over a Chinese one and not just because my tech support were probably consultants on its development. Russia has already proved that it can introduce foreign substances into the human body from halfway across the world and while admittedly this one is actually trying to save lives surely once you have something fatal it can't be too difficult to reverse engineer it so that it's less so. I wouldn't be astonished if the Russian vaccine turned out to be a polonium derivative.
The vaccine won't arrive in time to "save Christmas" but it might turn up in time for me to take a holiday next year. Because that's what it's all about of course. A ghastly pandemic sweeping the earth and tumbling the innocent headlong into the grave is essentially an inconvenience on my journey to building a decent bank of frequent flyer points. It's actually possible that my tech support's mind control chip might make me a better person. I have to go now; I have some detailed instructions, a kitchen knife and some short handled tongs so its time to make my contribution to the organ bank of Belarus.
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