Garth Rattray | Dear humans ... an open letter from SARS-CoV-2

Dear Humans,

It did not take long after I made my appearance among you for me to feel welcomed and at home. Your very kind cooperation is much appreciated. I am totally unable to move around unaided; without your help, I am completely immobile, yet you willingly transport me (a total stranger) to the ends of the Earth and introduce me to many people. You are excellent hosts who make it easy for me to produce billions of copies of myself. And, thanks to your kind assistance, I have more than enough time to make variants that will be able to get around much easier and do far more than I ever dreamt possible.

As individuals, you provide the best base of operations that anyone like me could ever hope for. At first, I was enigmatic and so, by the time your expert scientists realised that I not only existed, but that I also ensconced myself in many countries, I was already well established. It’s my good fortune that, by and large, you do whatever pleases you despite the possible serious negative effects to others. This has allowed me free passage from person to person, community to community, country to country and, indeed, from continent to continent

COLONISE THE PLANET

I am not bad or evil, I only want to multiply as much as possible and to produce hardier offspring to colonise this planet. I could never achieve any of that without your invaluable help. Obviously, I do not want to kill you off; if I did that, I would have no hosts/factories to produce others like me and no means of spreading my offspring everywhere. Therefore, I do my best to exist without making most of you sick. Unfortunately, some become sick and a relative few (several millions) become very sick, suffer and die horribly; however, there’ll always be collateral damage in incursions.

Luckily for me, most hosts/factories that I infect feel fine, so they protest and sometimes even become belligerent when told to follow protocols designed to defeat me. Thanks to them, I can float or shoot out of nostrils and mouths and gain easy access to many other hosts. Indeed, you are wonderful, I could never ask for more cooperation.

Fortunately for me, a large proportion of you do not trust your scientists or your leaders; you choose instead to trust your health and lives to innumerable crackpots and wannabes that spew absolute rubbish wherever they can. Luckier still for me that your technology is helping the rapid and incessant spread of lies and misinformation. For unknown reasons, many humans accept falsehood as gospel.

TAKE ADVANTAGE

It’s as if I won the super lotto, my good fortune is seemingly boundless. I am able to take advantage of all the doubt, many opinions, various views, changing theories and general confusion about how I do what I do. This conundrum enables me to grow from strength to strength and, in so doing, spread even more confusion. I am the happiest that I have ever been.

When the vaccines came along, they gave me a serious scare, I thought that I was done for sure. But, thankfully, once again, lies and misinformation paved the way for me to grow even stronger through my several variants. And amazingly, even though you know of the unspeakable suffering and deaths that I can cause, many of you bizarrely believe that the vaccines pose a greater threat than I do. LOL, LOL, LOL.

You have been, and continue to be, of invaluable assistance to me by refusing to keep away from other humans, by not sanitising and/or washing your hands often, and by refusing to wear that effective weapon against me, your mask. But most of all, my variants and I are eternally grateful that many of you choose to continue assisting us by refusing to get vaccinated. Thank you.

Yours always,

SARS-CoV-2

Garth A. Rattray is a medical doctor with a family practice. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and garthrattray@gmail.com.