One of the most serious issues that has faced us for a couple of years is the arrival of the Nipah virus in the Subcontinent. From what I’ve read, it’s several times more fatal than covid-19. That was scary enough, but though I’ve heard of people who’ve had it, and I know one person who had to go on a ventilator because of it, I can’t think of anyone who actually died of it.
Nipah is much worse. I’m not sure how infectious it is, but I assume it’s like other viruses. Like them, it attacks the respiratory system, though it is much more virulent than your common-or-garden cold. Your seasonal cold my lead to a fever, and a particularly vicious hacking cough. But this is something different. And the common cold is extremely contagious. You’ve got one person hacking, and you’ve got them all doing it.
And something tells me we’re not ready for it. I don’t know if we’ve got enough stocks of facemasks, for example, And the world doesn’t yet have a vaccine. It seems that there is one in the works, but they haven’t completed the clinical trials yet.
The Nipah virus is supposed to have originated when it crossed over in Malaysia from fruitbats to pigs and from the pigs to people. The pigs got it from the half-eaten fruit the bats dropped, and then people got it from eating the pigs. That sounds a little like how avian flu crossed over to people, but more to the point, the way covid-19 originated, unless you believe the Wuhan story, of the escape from some lab where the Chinese were making a biological agent. Trump didn’t believe it was natural, and didn’t believe that lockdowns were needed. He believed it could be cured by chugging down some bleach.
He shares with Imran Khan medical expertise. Imran didn’t get the Nipah virus, but was in the news with a central retinal vein occlusion of his right eye. One description is that it is a disease of old age. That is so unfair to Imran, who is drawing the youth vote because of his youthful good looks. It is another matter that the young people who voted for him in 2018 have got jobs (well, some of them), and some have got married and got children. Those children have now started going to school. Yes, they have started going to that vast and dense network of schools laid down by the Buzdar government.
The solution to all problems is going to be to spring Imran from durance vile. I don’t know about all problems, though, for no matter how much the PTI protests, no one is going to include Imran as one of the guests of the late Jeffry Epstein. His pal Trump is included, though, as is the Andrew formerly known as Prince. Elon Musk is mentioned, as is Bill Gates. But Imran isn’t.
Perhaps most insulting of all, Harvey Weinstein isn’t. Perhaps that is why Ali Zafar isn’t picketing the US Embassy, carrying a sign saying: Jeffrey Epstein was murdered”. He protested Weinstein’s conviction, as he did that of Bill Cosby.
But at the same time, perhaps we should be happy that our and our country’s blushes have been spared. I mean, there’d have been nothing easier than putting anybody’s name on the list., In fact, I think there must be some way to stop, because otherwise we’ll have the Australian T20 tea, on the list. They’ve been whipped by use, making Salman Ali Agha not just a prospect for the Test captaincy when Shan Masood has had enough, but also for getting on the same page, to the exclusion of Imran Khan. Will Salman appeal to the youth vote when he is 70?
