I suppose we are lucky and do not have any teams quarantined, just playing in front of empty stadia. That decision probably best told us that the coronavirus is here. But it also told us who really controls cricket: TV. Why do they not cancel the matches? If they did, what would they put on TV? And remember, the decision to have a PSL was not taken until it was sure that some TV channel would buy the telecast rights.
That is why sport after sport is postponing, not cancelling, even though sportsmen are as liable to panic as the best of us. Of course, not everyone has been as exposed as the Arsenal football team, which all went into self-quarantine after meeting a Greek club owner who later tested positive for the virus. Basketball and golf are among the sports affected. You see, you do not want crowds gathering where the virus could spread from person to person.
That’s why they are shutting down schools. And not just that, not only have the schools been closed till April 6, but the O Levels to have been held in May, have been postponed to November. All that effort to synchronise the O Levels with college admissions has gone down the drain, it seems. Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) has been shut down, because some kid returned from a coronavirus destination, and didn’t want to miss classes just because of a fever and cough.
Meanwhile, there have been serious developments, like Mr and Mrs Hanks testing positive in Australia, where Tom had gone to film a movie about Elvis Presley. Boy, that film’s set must be in a tizzy. Justin Trudeau’s wife has tested positive, so he is going to go into self-imposed quarantine for 15 days. US President Donald Trump is also going to be tested after an aide got the disease.
A British junior health minister also tested positive the other day, after the Iranian deputy health minister went down with the disease, gamely telecasting health tips from his sickbed. Our Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Health, Dr Zafar Mirza has been exposed, but as junior minister seems to get the dread disease, all eyes should be on the parliamentary secretary for health services, Dr Nausheen Afzal.
I see there is a dispute developing between the United States and China about what caused the coronavirus spread. The Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman says that maybe US soldiers caused the disease. The best solution is to have the famous epidemiologist and diagnostician Dr Imran Khan decide. Surely the man who can decide, from a photo of the back of Nawaz Sharif’s head, that Nawaz is well, should be able to decide who started the epidemic. I am sure he will blame it on Nawaz. If not him, then Shahbaz. Both are conveniently in the UK with doctors, and with access to well-equipped hospital labs. It was around the same time that Dr Adnan Khan was beaten up on a walk in the UK. I know you are not supposed to blame people for treating corrupt elements, but surely someone who helped Nawaz spread the coronavirus deserves what he got? And he should not hang around with corrupt elements. If Nawaz not only was boycotted by doctors but also by lawyers, where would he be?
Meanwhile, my younger son is trying to fight the coronavirus by gargling. He forgot to put any salt in the warm water, but he deserves an A for effort. Especially since he makes it a point to cough over his siblings. Not only is he home from school, but he has not got the Republic Day parade to look forward to. It is a pity they did not cancel the parade a little earlier. We lost an F-16 and the wing commander piloting it during the rehearsals. If someone had realised before the crash that people from Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) could be at the parade coughing their guts out, maybe it would not have happened.
No one has looked at the positives. Like there was no need to sentence Harvey Weinstein to 23 years of imprisonment for rape. You could have just put him in a roomful of coronavirus victims. The only way he could avoid getting sick would be to hold his breath until he died. But that wouldn’t have happened. You cannot hold your breath until you die. Because the lack of oxygen will make you faint. And then you’ll start breathing.
But apart from everything, Ali Zafar has protested the sentence. He feels Weinstein should be given a medal, not coronavirus. For the sort of self-sacrifice that went into the founding of the #MeToo movement as he himself has shown in the Meesha Shafi civil suit.
At home, we are seeing the advantages of having a doctor like Imran heading the government, such as the medical emergency declared by Punjab Chief Minister Usman Buzdar, even though he is not a medical man himself.
If he had been, he would not have allowed a forward bloc to form in the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N). That was an unsafe meeting he had, with the MPAs forming the forward bloc. Especially considering that politicians spout so much hot air. And hot air is the ideal environment for the virus.
