Poor Coronavirus rhetoric is catching

The current situation with Covid-19 is bringing out not only the best and worst of humanity, but also the worst of humanity’s politicians and political minded.

As the number of confirmed cases has risen in the UK, so has the amount of questionable takes on the situation.

Empty shelves in supermarkets and stock piling of pasta, toilet rolls and soap have resulted in the big supermarkets needing to put out a joint statement saying that people need to essentially chill out and stop panic buying.

The panic buying has also somehow enabled some on the right to claim the empty shelves are a symbol of what a Jeremy Corbyn government would look like. What seems to be passing them by is that it is happening in real life under a capitalist conservative government. Shifting blame away from the Boris Johnson government which is coming under criticism of the way it is dealing with the coronavirus outbreak, perhaps?

We then get to an almost unbelievable comparison of the coronavirus to that of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s from former Conservative Party MP Anne Widdecombe. She said that the two were the same in the sense that both are not as bad as people say they are/were. Try telling that to the loved ones of the 38 million people who died because of it.

The coronavirus outbreak may have affected many countries more than the UK so far, but it’s fair to say our government is hardly dealing with the situation well. Increasing calls for the UK to follow in the footsteps of Ireland and close all schools look to have fallen on deaf ears for the moment and Johnson’s speech in which he informed the public that some of them will lose loved ones.

The number of cases is rising by more each day, as is the number of people in the UK who have died after being diagnosed with the illness. On Wednesday, 18 March, this was 2,626 cases and 104 deaths.

Schools in the UK are about to close but the question of ‘was it too late?’ is still to be answered. Other countries across Europe have moved into lock down, and the UK feels closer to this stage every day.

The concern is growing across the world about the intensity of this virus, but amongst all the negativity and lack of human kindness, there are examples of people looking out for each other. To get through this, we will need much, much more of this.