Corona Saga: Lock Down - 20th Day

Twas the 20th Day of the Lock Down. The Coronavirus Monster had bitten over two million people and killed over 120,000. Tired of twisting words into humour, and seeing naught to be humorous about, Cone Man took the day off ...

Corona Saga: Lock Down - 18th Day

Twas the 18th Day of the Lock Down. Twas the Day that the Shepherd King rose from the dead and defeated Death. He had risen, he had risen indeed. Buoyed by this positive thought, Cone Man's mind turned to other resurrections.

Cone Man realised that it may be premature to think that way while the world was walking along the great Via Dolorosa towards to the crucifixion of the way of life that had prevailed prior to 1st of January 2020. Admittedly, the Coronavirus Monster had emerged in November of 2019, but the wondrous peace of blissful ignorance had prevailed so widely that many departed for foreign holidays from whence they returned with great difficulty. Some were still having great difficulty returning.

Resurrection, however, was part of life. The caterpillar was reborn as a butterfly, and the butterfly was reborn as a caterpillar. The mating of young men with young woman may have produced the weariness of tending newborn babies, yet enabled the human race to live on after the young became old and passed on. The biographies of famous people were replete with accounts of failure of professions and projects unrelated to the professions and projects they later became famous for. And how many successful businesses originated from unemployed people having to explore new ventures in very difficult circumstances?

Daydreaming about Spring growth after the bleak Winter was all very well, but how bleak, dark and long was the Winter going to be? And how would the world endure it? Cone Man was shocked to learn that 25,000 people had applied for 2,000 supermarket jobs. Airline pilots were stacking supermarket shelves, a situation inconceivable to all a mere two months earlier.

Troubles came not in threes, but in thirty's and were too numerous to be listed. Dairy farmers saw the worldwide market for milk products collapse and were faced with a price that barely paid their expenses. Rest homes bought personal protective equipment because the government refused to supply it. Farmers in the Land of the Stars and Stripes Tribe disposed of millions of tons of food when they found that they could not deliver it to market.

"If this is the 'Autumn', I shudder to think what the 'Winter' will be like Cone Man groaned ...

Corona Saga: Lock Dowm - 17th Day

Twas the 17th Day of the Lock Down. Twas the Day when the Shepherd King lay in the tomb, after having been killed in no uncertain terms the previous day. Twas strangely appropriate to the wider entombment of the All Black Tribe in their caves, a nation lying dormant, along with the rest of the world.

Unfortunately, instead of one man dying once and all for the sins of the world, it seemed as if the world was dying for the sins of the Dragon Tribe of the Middle Kingdom. But what to do? The Dragon Tribe could not be sued, and even if they could, no law suit would put the  Coronavirus Monster  back in the bottle from whence  it sprang.

Who would or could move the stone trapping billions of human beings in this grave moratorium on the business of life? Medical experts prophesied the coming of a New Vaccine that would arise to deliver humanity form the Coronavirus Monster; Econe-mavens prophesied Disruption, Depression and Doom brought about by the terrible Recession Monster, sadly not without evidence; and tribal leaders prophesied that one day they would lead their tribes out of their caves, through  the Level 3 Alert,  and on to a time, which, if not exactly flowing with milk and honey, would at least allow the people to buy milk with printed money.

Cone Man had his doubts, but what was to be gained by a lack of faith? The way things were going, even false hopes were better than no hope. And the business of life could continue in the many tombs in which the population hid.

Cone Man's literary work continue, as did the work of many who had access to the Internet at their caves. Cone Man wondered how many children were being conceived each minute, but knew he would have wait for a few months before the statistics appeared.

The business of life, in some quarters, even took on a new lease of life. Prophets of the Cult of the Shepherd King found that three times more  people attended their online services than ever attended when they could physically gather for worship. The supermarkets continued to do a roaring trade.

Grave as their predicament was, the men and women of the All Black Tribe, were definitely not dormant, even if some of them felt rather down ...

Corona Saga: Lock Dowm - 16th Day

Twas the 16th Day of the Lock Down. Twas also the day when the Cult of the Shepherd King commemorated his unjust trial and brutal execution on the orders of the uber villain, Pontius Pilate. Pilate was a cynical man, to say the least, so far gone that at one point of the trial he asked: "What is truth?"

4.7 million members of the  All Black Tribe, settling in for what was effectively a siege, had time to begin reflecting on their situation and the many questions it raised. Everybody understood the broad question of the hour, namely when was the day and the hour when they would be caught up in the rapture of the post Level 4 Lock Down world without going forth to damnation by disease? 

In every age, there is a great question that defines the Zeitgeist of the period, simultaneously unifying everybody around one point of reference and dividing everybody into different parties regarding the answer. Already the Great Question of the Age was creating the Various Views of the Age.

The Vaccine View held that it was criminally negligent to relax restrictions on the population until a vaccine had been found, tested and mass produced. Purely scientific and logical, the Vaccine View appealed to medical scientists and humanists, but ignored two problems. Firstly, until the vast amount of data being generated by intensive and extensive research was processed, scientific opionion of Covid-19 was not strictly speaking, scientific. Secondly, continuing draconian restrictions on the freedoms of over seven billion people for fear that some would die from disease was all very well in temrs of humanist situation ethics, but was ultimately inhumane. The business of life cease, and many began to wonder how long before lives began to cease.

Cessation of lives because the cessation of business was propounded by the Economic View. And in truth, if the economy declined past a certain point, death by non-Covid-19 means was inevitable via suicides, lack of resources and tax revenue, and political strife arising from economic distress. The Economic View also had flaws. Firstly, much of the damage was already done, because the shock of the previous 6 weeks had crushed sections of the economy and suppressed demand for years to come. Secondly, the downstream effect of the shock could and probably would create an economic depression that would have life of its own, irrespective of what measures were employed to fight the Conroavirus Monster.

The Herd Immunity View occupied the middle ground between the first two views. The Herd Immunity View argued for a graduated lifting of restrictions so that most of the population could return to work, on the rationale that those who got sick could be managed while the bulk of the population developed and 'herd immunity'. Those judged to be vulnerable, namely the old and sickly, would remain at home until a vaccine was available.

The Herd Immunity View also had flaws. Firstly,  it was a situation ethics calculation - the benefits of allowing people to go back to work would outweigh the cost of those who died. Secondly, it effectively turned the bulk of the population into human laboratory rats in a gigantic medical experiment. Admittedly, many considered the urban lifestyle of the human race to be a 'rat race' but that was beside the point.

Policy makers would have choose one of these views sooner or later, and whatever they chose, many would condemn as them as uber villains. "What is truth?" Cone Man wondered ...

Corona Saga: Lock Down - 15th Day (continued)

Twas the morn of the 16th Day of the Lock Down. Cinda had announced on the 15th Day that all who showed up at the borders of the Land of the All Black Tribe would henceforth be automatically placed under supervised quarantine for a period. Previously returning members of the tribe had been allowed to go home on the understanding that they would quarantine themselves at home and be checked upon by officials. This procedure was found to be unworkable in one out of three cases, hence the change in policy.

The wisdom of Cinda's policies was becoming apparent to all. Less than 1300 people had been bitten by the Coronavirus Monster in the Land of the  All Black Tribe, and over the last four days the number of people recovering had exceeded the number of people diagnosed. The plague had peaked.

Sadly, the plague had not peaked in the world beyond the sheltering  seas in which the Land of the All Black Tribe nestled in comfortable isolation. The All Black Tribe watched in helpless horror as tribe after tribe suffered the predations of the Coronavirus Monster.

Information from medical research was beginning to flood into the Centres of Learning and like a picture emerging from the pen of a pointalist artist the outlines of the Coronavirus Monster were coming to clearer view as they were illuminated by facts. The facts, while they were still bad, were increasingly less Apocalyptic. The projected death toll in the Land of the Starts and Stripes Tribe had reduced from an initial worst case scenario of a quarter of a million people to just over 60,000. Nevertheless, there was still not enough information.

No one really knew where the 'lines in the sand' were. A full scale lock down was safest but unacceptable in the long run. A full scale re-opening of the economy was inevitable, but what level of Coronavirus deaths were acceptable and inevitable for the economy to run? At point could these two polar opposites be reconciled and balanced? Cone Man reassured himself that the torrent of information reaching policy makers would ultimately answer this question, but for now he could only hope.

Confined, if not to the catacombs, the Cult of the Shepherd King found they were able to congregate virtually via the Internet. Things had certainly changed since St. Paul had written half the New Testament while dictating letters to scribes  in Greek for the benefit of far flung congregations geography and his chains preventing him from preaching to in person.

Confinement did not prevent members of the Cult of the Shepherd King from praying in their own homes. Furthermore, there was much for them to pray about. The national sky canoe tribe had just announced that 1460 people were to lose their jobs. "That adds a new take on the old phrase 'on a wing and a prayer'" Cone Man thought as he wondered how they would keep their homes ...

Corona Saga: Lock Down - 15th Day

Twas the 15th Day of the Lock Down. The Lock Down was past the midway point for the All Black Tribe, but other tribes had further to go to complete this particular journey through time. The reigning overlord of the Rising Sun Tribe decreed that their lock down would begin in a few days. The overlord of the Stars and Stripes Tribe advised his people that the worst week of their Corona crisis lay ahead of them.

The world was both locking down and loosening, as the stragglers locked down and the veterans learned how far they could loosen the restrictions. Lack of confidence about the future locked down spending everywhere as frivolous goods and services were ignored in favour of paying mortgages, rents, utility bills and food.

"What worth a man is appears best at a time of adversity, for circumstances do not make a man frail but they do show what sort of man he is" Thomas a Kempis opined in 1418. Thomas was an Augustinian friar who spent most of his remarkably long life cloistered in the Mt. Saint Agnes monastery, so his observation was peculiarly pertinent to a situation that forced, albeit briefly, billions of people in their own cloisters.

Shining brightly in the gloom, many proved their worth by quiet and often heroic self sacrifice: Doctors and nurses in many parts of the world died helping patients; supermarket workers did their poorly paid best to serve the public; many worked from home while home schooling children.

Shadier characters found their dark dispositions thrown into sharp relief. Many demonstrate d a total refusal to comply with the Lock Down; others gladly applied for wage subsidies they did not share with their workers; and a small minority were so malicious they spat on others with the intention of infecting them.

Some were merely silly rather than sinister. One less than sinister cabinet minister, wise in his own eyes, but a hopeless fool in the eyes of others, ignored his own ministry's rules twice in one week. Cinda had every reason to be hard and stern with this miscreant, but had to discipline rather dismiss him on account of the unacceptable chaos that would result. He would be removed when the crisis was over.

The crisis, however, was young and far from fully grown. "We'll see far better and worse conduct before this saga runs it epic course" Cone Man cone-sidered ... 

Corona Saga: Lock Down - 14th Day

Twas the 14th Day of the Lock Down. The All Black Tribe was both relieved and depressed. Relieved because they had passed the 'midway' point and looked forward to the end of their confinement; depressed because the novelty had warn off and been replaced by boredom. Boredom, they found, did not grant immunity from fear of the unknown, and fear of the unknown turned into anxiety, which in turn led to depression.

Cone Man, personally, did not view depression has a problem. Cone Man even cone-sidered that cone-siderable harm was done by the contemporary tendency to view depression as evidence that something was terribly wrong.

Depression, viewed properly was a natural part of life like night and winter. The world's temperature was finely calibrated by the god of Cone Man, and if it ceased to spin on its axis, or orbit the Sun, all eight billion souls riding through space on the Great Space Ship would be dead within a few weeks.

Similarly, if human beings only experienced happiness and ecstatic joy, how long would it be before they broke down? What warrior could experience a young wife and fatherhood without the stresses of family responsibility? What woman could experience a young husband and motherhood without post-partum depression? If you could accept that depression was only that, then you could more easily transition out of it. Or so was Cone Man's Uneducated Layman's Opinion Which Others Should Take With A Cone-siderable Grain Of Salt.

Cone Man's speculations about  human psychology did not change the fact that humans had rather a lot to be psychotic about. Cinda the Hard and Stern indicated that the Lock Down would not continue past the 28th Day, but many legends indicated that the All Black Tribe had much to be anxious about: tourism, hotels and airlines were suddenly so uneconomic that tour operators, hoteliers and air crew had no choice but to consider new careers, if they were young enough; recession was a fact not a fear; and by some estimates the effects of the  Corona crisis would take three and a half years to play out. The unspoken dread handing over all of this was the suspicion that one of the many ill effects of the crisis could in turn spark a new crisis that could compound humanity's problems.

One way or another, the All Black Tribe was in for a long hard time, and there was nothing to do else to do about it but settle in for the proverbial 'Long Haul'. Cone Man began to feel rather  depressed ...