The Corona King Press Conference
If you thought our press was tough, think again!
I happen to be one of the very few humans to have actually witnessed the recent press conference of the infamous Corona King. What struck me was the fierceness of the corona journalists towards their own head of state — they didn’t exactly hold back. Nonetheless, the monarch held his own and rebutted in his daunting style.
The first jibe came from an exquisite lady of admirable age at the front row, asking the king outright if his policy was failing, seeing how the numbers of new infections amongst the HomSaps were dwindling in most countries now. “HomSaps”, by the way, is corona slang for Homo Sapiens — and that would be us, humans.
To give you a little background that might be quite unfamiliar due to our overly strong interest in nothing but our own point of view, the coronas have a very single-minded strategy — survive as a species and thrive by spreading as far and as wide in as short an amount of time as possible. The survival of the corona gene pool means everything to them. By latching on to our species, the coronas secured themselves of billions of hosts that travel far and wide without paying much attention to anyone or anything other than themselves — the ideal host for a virus which is not as deadly as say, their rival ebola.
The staunch king would have nothing of the undermining question.
“We are still going strong! The number of daily infections remains quite steady at nearly a hundred thousand HomSaps a day. I wouldn’t exactly call that ‘dwindling’.”
Looking at the website of John Hopkins University, which is regarded worldwide as a reliable source of COVID-19 statistics, the sovereign is not lying.
“Moreover,” he continued sharply, “it’s just that in some countries, where we started our campaign earlier, the first wave is coming to an end, as planned. Wait ‘till we hit them with our second wave, which — as you know — we plan to be far more overwhelming than our first.”
There is no way to corroborate the king’s statement that there will be a second wave, let alone that it will be far more deadly. History, however, tells us that in previous pandemics, there were almost always multiple waves raging across the globe, and more than once, the first wave was the weakest. During the outbreak of the notorious Spanish Flu, for instance, the first wave — in the spring of 1918 — had resembled typical flu epidemics — those most at risk were the sick and elderly, while younger, healthier people recovered easily (sounds familiar?). By August, when the second wave began, the virus had mutated to a much more deadly form. October 1918 was the month with the highest fatality rate of the whole pandemic.
As boisterous as the king might have been, the corona press seemed not in the least impressed. The frost tried his luck with a young man, who immediately popped that dream by asking him sternly if the end was nigh, now that the HomSaps were talking of discovering a dreaded vaccine within perhaps even a few months. Why go through the trouble of organizing a second wave, the young journalist was keen on knowing.
“Hah! That’s all wishful thinking on their part! Know your history people! When our ancestors struck fear into the hearts of the hapless HomSaps, it took them years and years to strike back successfully! In some cases, they have not even been able to counterattack yet! I have no doubt in my mind that we will be victorious when we persevere!”
A quick fact-check shows that, indeed, vaccine development is a long, complex process, often lasting 10–15 years. Not always easy to follow, the king might have been referring to HIV-AIDS when he said we haven’t been able to counterattack. Despite 32 million deaths and many more millions of dollars spent on research, we haven’t found a vaccine or a cure for the horrible viral anti-immune disease. There are other viruses against which we have no cure or vaccine as a countermeasure, like the lesser-known dengue virus, which still demands thousands of human sacrifices each year.
A third journalist wanted to know if, despite having no cure or vaccine, the HomSaps might be successful in subverting the coronas’ much-needed dispersal by applying their new ritual of social distancing and by wearing masks. This time, the impetuous ruler couldn’t help but laugh out loud while trying to regain his composure.
“Social distancing? Masks?”, the king grinned. “From what we know of the behavior of the HomSaps, is that they are very sloppy when it comes to discipline. Mark my words, they won’t be able to maintain any of it. From what I hear from my people in the field, there is already infighting going on between the strict and the sloppy. Before you know it, they’ll be killing each other over social distancing and masks, so let’s not go there. Besides, our finest soldiers tell me they are able to make the leap anyway, because many HomSaps don’t keep enough distance, or wear their masks wrong.” To which the Corona King added more belly-shaking laughter.
A more intriguing query came near the end of the presser. A softspoken corona journalist inquired about the many rumors of the deliberate spreading of fake news on the social media of the HomSaps. With the king’s somewhat twitchy assistants hovering around the podium, he answered seemingly riled.
“I won’t go into any details of the operational campaign, we don’t want to be aiding the enemy, right? All I can say is that — to our advantage — many, many HomSaps are pretty gullible, they’ll believe anything. Some of them even believe other HomSaps are trying to hurt them with vaccines!” The worrying grimace of the sovereign turned into a glorious grin again, adding, “which, of course, we will not undermine. That’s all I can say for now.”
With that, the astounding press conference came to an end, leaving me wondering how different our outlooks on the near future actually are, with us trying to reopen our HomSaps societies even when the first wave is only coming to an end — and not even that in so many places around the world.
