Category: annoying people

Day 120 – Good stats

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Amazing news for Cape Town’s Southern Suburbs – an area of opulence, privilege and Diep River – with the latest Covid-19 stats: now with extra detail.

Cape Town used to be the “epicentre” of the country’s infections. Indeed at one point, it was home to an incredible 10% of the cases on the entire continent. But as things got worse here, they got worser [really? – Ed.] elsewhere else, and we’ve long since fallen behind Johannesburg for new and current infections. Now we’re just another city with thousands of cases.

But it’s the detailed breakdown of the stats that has really made all the difference. And I’m pleased – nay, proud even – to announce that since mask wearing was made compulsory there have been no new cases in the Southern Suburbs of Covid… of the chin.

I spoke to local health spokesperson Dr Mae Dupnayme for her take on this.
Here’s what she had to say.

“The mask regulations were promulgated on the 12th of July, and they’ve really made a difference to the number of people you see out and about with masks. In the Southern Suburbs especially, where white men and women – especially those with K-Way puffer jackets and/or too much botox for their own good – are apparently immune to this novel virus, people walking around wearing masks around their chins and necks has become a very common sight. And I think that’s why we have seen the amount of chin Covid plummet to zero. Interestingly, hand Covid levels are also very low, probably due in the main part to teenage girls wandering around in non-socially-distanced groups each with their mask dangling from their wrist.
The number of respiratory infections? Oh, that’s through the sodding roof. Everyone’s breathing the damn virus out over everyone else and spreading it like syphilis at that place in Bellville.
But I have seen literally no cases of Covid of the chin for a week now. It’s amazing.”

But is Covid of the chin a real thing?
Dr Dupnayme explains:

“Technically, probably not. We’ve never actually seen a case of Covid of the chin, but there are two important parts to this: firstly, we’d never actually seen a case of Covid of the anything before a few months ago, and secondly, the fact that we’ve seen zero cases means that actually, it has not increased from previous levels, which were obviously also zero, and when we’re referring to anything to do with Covid right now, the words “not increased” are like bloody gold dust, and look really good in our report. Really good.
And so I’d like to thank all those who ignored the grammatically disastrous DO NOT BRING DOWN YOUR MASK TO THE CHIN thing with the weird bloke and his horribly infected neck – covered in “bacteria or virus or germs” – that’s been doing the rounds on Facebook.
Actually, in putting their masks over their chins and not over their noses and mouths, they’ve effectively prevented any cases of Covid of the chin: a disease that never existed and has never killed anyone. Well done.
A sad side-effect of this behaviour is that they’re breathing out coronavirus from your exposed nose and mouth and that could kill someone, of course, but they won’t need to stress about that. It’s not them, is it?
But the no chin Covid thing is great news for anyone worried about getting Covid on their chin. That’s the message we need to be taking from these numbers. Zero Covid of the chin.”

An incredible tale indeed.

So, from the Ground Zero of South African coronavirus infections to some of the lowest rates of Covid of the chin in the whole world. It really is a huge success story for the Mother City and especially the posh suburbs in the south.

 

And Diep River.

 

Day 118 – Really?

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In a country where everything – everything – gets touched by the thieving hands of Government corruption, it’s good to know that someone is finally standing up and fighting corruption. That someone is… [checks notes] er… [checks notes again] er… apparently, it’s… The Government.

This image, appended to the bottom of this tweet:

Government remains committed to building an ethical State in which there is no place for corruption, patronage, rent-seeking and plundering of public money. Report any suspected corrupt activities. #AntiCorruption #FightingCorruption Read more: gov.za/anticorruption

reminded me of [an analogy I decided not to use*] or the Pope encouraging people to come forward and root out Catholicism.

It’s literally everywhere (corruption, not Catholicism) (although…) from the President’s office down.

 

They say a fish rots from the head, but there’s smelly sludge all over the gills, fins and tail in this case. (Can you tell that I never did more than basic fish biology during my studies?)

R4.8 million for someone to go door to door and tell people about Covid-19 – R2640 per person. A cool ten and a half grand if there’s a family of four at home when you call.

There’s R29.7 million “missing” in KZN.

The R500 billion coronavirus fund was obviously just too good an opportunity to miss:

So:

And I should probably just not mention the Eastern Cape Scooter Fiasco*.

These examples were not hard to find, at all. And one could argue that at least someone is documenting, recording and reporting them. But mostly, nothing ever happens about these cases, and even on the odd occasion when it does, the perpetrators are re-employed by their equally corrupt colleagues (and/or political party) soon afterwards anyway.

So where is the punishment?

So what is the point?

But then for the government – arguably the most guilty entity for both the enabling of and looting of public money – to tell us that “Fighting corruption is everyone’s business”?

I’ve honestly never heard such utterly hypocritical bullshit.

 

 

* 100 words in was just too soon to invoke Godwin’s Law. 
** I actually saw The Eastern Cape Scooter Fiasco on the Friday at Reading in 2007. Great drummer. Energetic performance. 

Day 116 – A very poor example by Jesus

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This is very disappointing from Jesus and his Disciples. Offered up to us throughout our childhoods as a shining example of how to lead our lives, I’ve just been sent this image of Him and His friends out and about last night, and quite frankly, I’m shocked.

Let me just say that I’m not impressed with the idea of celebrities not being able to lead their private lives privately, either. I wouldn’t usually use a paparazzi shot like this on the blog.

But this has got me mad.

Zero social distancing. And not a mask in sight.

Appalling.

I’ll bet that they didn’t even sign in with their contact details for Track and Trace in case someone ends up with the bad Covid. Which they will, because, I mean, just look at the state of this.

And while the restaurant owner needs to step up and take some responsibility – why not space them out over both sides of the table for starters (and the other courses)?? – this really comes down squarely on the shoulders of the guys at the table. I’m willing to bet that alcohol was involved here: they’ve clearly all been on the water and have forgotten about the rules and regulations put in place to protect us all.

And are those Jägerbombs on the table? That’s illegal.

Look, it’s all very well dying for the sins of mankind, but when stuff about your private life like this comes out, it really devalues the whole message. Very poor.

Get it together, for Christ’s sake.

 

Day 112 – Simulation

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I’m not going to spend too much time on this, because it is fairly straightforward stuff, unless you’re an idiot.

One of the things that companies and organisations do is train their staff. That’s so that their staff and systems can become more proficient at doing whatever it is that they do. It’s not rocket science (although I guess that rockets scientists also do training stuff – it’s pretty much ubiquitous).

If I think of a profession that trains regularly, I think of firefighters. Remember passing the local fire station with its four-storey tower build specifically for training, as a kid?

Here’s my local one:

The UN and the WHO are organisations that train their staff. One of the things they train their staff on is how to deal with global pandemics, because that’s the sort of thing that the UN and the WHO are involved in dealing with. They work with other organisations (governments, the EU, the CDC etc) and other experts in planning for these sort of things so that – hopefully, at least- communications, sharing of data, logistics and the like can all be put in place more quickly and more efficiently in the event of an actual global pandemic, whether it is one that came from a wildlife market in Wuhan or from a terrorist organisation releasing a pathogenic organism.

Yep. Believe it or not, the global response to this virus could have been even worse, were it not for the training that the UN and its friends have been doing for years (because we’ve known for years that something like this was coming, remember?).

They simulate what they would have to do in a situation like this.

They don’t actually do it.

Much as the boys and girls from Rivelin Fire Station simulate fighting a house fire as described above. They don’t actually come round to your place, dowse it in petrol and light it up, just to see if they can get you out from an upstairs window before you succumb to smoke inhalation and/or horrific burns.

That would be real*, not a simulation.  

If you read this thing going around on Whatsapp:

… as being the “smoking gun” evidence that this pandemic is just a massive experiment on the entire population of the planet, carefully orchestrated by shadowy figures who control our world leaders, then I’m telling you that you’re wrong.

How careless of the UN and the WHO to have accidentally published it in a (still) globally available document. You’d really think that they’d have tried to keep this information to themselves, wouldn’t you?**

“Oops.”

If you then, having been wrong above, make a 1 hour and 40 minute (!!) Youtube video (and no, I will not share the link) about this being the “smoking gun” evidence that this pandemic is just a massive experiment on the entire population of the planet, carefully orchestrated by shadowy figures who control our world leaders, then [choose appropriate deity], you are clearly beyond any help that I (or possibly anyone else) can give you.

Life is hard enough right now without this sort of tinfoil hat-ism.

Really. Get a grip.

 

 

* also, that would be arson…
** yeah, but that’s exactly what they want you to think…

 

Day 111 – Understanding reactions

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People react to different things in different ways.

As Rudyard Kipling famously wrote:

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs…

Then you would be good as the first responder to a multi-vehicle pile up*.
You need someone who can organise and mobilise and prioritise in that situation.

But that’s not important here.
Unless you are reading this while driving, in which case, it might be important soon.

I can understand why people react with frustration and disappointment to the recently reinstated alcohol ban. I also reacted this way (even though I also understand the alleged rationale behind it).

I get why people don’t agree with the ban on the sale of tobacco. I don’t agree with it either.

But I can’t understand why people won’t wear masks. It’s so simple. So obvious. So straightforward. It’s so easy. I cannot see the downside.

Maybe the resistance is because of the other rules and regulations over which you have less control? Pushback against a government that one feels is taking things too far?

I know, I know – there are a lot of other underlying issues here. No time for those right now. Or… maybe… ever.

But wearing a mask isn’t difficult and it has benefits for everyone – even slowing the spread of the virus and potentially getting those other “draconian” measures lifted sooner.

Being asked to wear a mask is a no-brainer.

It shouldn’t elicit stuff like this:

 

u wot m8?

You don’t need me to point out just how many things there are wrong with this (spoiler: I’m about to list a few, anyway). It simply doesn’t make any sense.
Where has this toddler been that everyone is wearing masks all the time? Why was everybody (and clearly, I mean everybody) wearing masks in Dubai for a couple of years before the coronavirus outbreak? What happened to this toddler’s parents? Why haven’t they taken him for tests? Or is he in hospital for those tests? Did they not discover any other underlying medical or psychological condition? How did they pinpoint it on the mask thing? I mean, it isn’t like the toddler could have told them, is it? How many toddlers are there in Dubai? How many toddlers are there in the world? Why is this toddler the only one affected in this way?

And then the big ones:
Why would someone make something like this up?
And why would anyone believe it?

I don’t know why people react to different things in different ways. For example, I don’t know why I reacted to this tweet by sitting in front of the footy last night and writing a 1000-word, fictional feature article about this Dubai toddler.

But I did.

Maybe it was that I needed answers to those questions above.
Maybe it was that the football was rather dull. I don’t know.

Anyway. Please go and read it and share it. Just for the lolz.

And please wear a mask. Thanks.

 

* Rudyard didn’t write that last line.