Herd Immunity? OK, Boomer!

Left: Dr. Pimenta. Right: Dr. Sikora

This news roundup from Channel 4 News popped up in my recommended feed and I was feeling homesick for ole' Blighty, so I sat down to watch its interpretation of the border closures in Europe, and Boris Johnson's Covid-19 'policy'. I use that word loosely 'cos, since when is doing nothing a 'policy'?

This video starts off more like a parade of national stereotypes than a news report: there's the French guy expressing his fears about the virus whilst smoking furiously on a traffic-choked street; there's the Italians, finally learning how to queue because it's easier to socially-distance that way; there's the German skinhead sitting in an empty pub, sipping from a bierstein of pilsner with a look of utter satisfaction, oblivious to the lack of human company.

(Don't snicker like that, European readers: your mass media ain't any better in how it portrays its close neighbours. If I have to hear "the British are all obsessed with the Imperial era" from one more Euronews junky, I'm going to stick a union jack in their ear and tell them I'm claiming it for Queen And Country!)

A clip on the #PauseTheSystem protest follows this - it's a bright spot in the report. This group has the right idea: "We need a break from this economic system that's crippling us and the planet," says its hazmat-clad spokeswoman.

The group is demanding mandatory sick pay for all people staying home in addition to government-coordinated closures. And not once in the whole clip did they give into the implacable British urge to sing, 'God Save The Queen' or discuss the Glory Days of Colonialism. I was boondoggled by their single minded focus and commitment to this wholly modern cause!

Good on you, Channel 4, for giving this vital movement a voice. I hope something like this comes to Berlin soon.

Next up is a topical discussion which I would have titled, "Boris Johnson Is Recommending Herd Immunity. Is He Criminally Insane Or Just Born With No Soul?" but it was probably called something I dunno, less provocative - and honest - than that. Going up one against one another are two contentious opponents: a Millennial Xer and a Boomer, doing the whole point-counterpoint thing.

The Boomer is Karol Sikora, ex-Chief of the Cancer Program at the World Health Organisation, now the Dean of Medicine at the University of Buckingham. Sikora is speaking from self-quarantine in, I can only assume, some plush country estate on a rolling English hill-scape dotted with liberty caps. He's got that peer of the realm sort of vibe and all the blissful ignorance that comes with it; frighteningly, he seems to have worked for the World Health Organisation too. Oh fuccck... I thought to myself. This might get ugly.

His opposite is a front line medic and cardiologist, Dr. Dominic Pimenta, whose sound and coherent logic is wholly impossible to discount. So Sikora does the next best thing, and wholly ignores it.

Pimenta has come on the show to highlight the need for immediate, strong action to counter the rising tide of coronavirus infections, and is speaking for 1,200 other frontline medics who risked their jobs to sign a letter of outrage directed at Boris Johnson, imploring his government to more. To do something, to slow the coronavirus' progress through the population.

Voice dripping with irony, Dr. Pimenta insists that, "I want to hear that the government is taking any measure - and by that I mean (laughing) ANY measure that will reduce the number of cases coming into hospital."

Noting that British hospitals are already running out of masks, even though the crisis hasn't really even begun yet; noting the long-term shortage of ventilators and even oxygen, Pimenta implores: "Save us time, that is the key thing that'll get us through this. We don't have the time we need to prepare."

Now it's Sikora's turn, and he immediately begins bigging up the idea of 'increasing the burden' on the health system. Pimenta's face is a visualisation of exasperated yoof the world over when they go, 'OK Boomer.' I think he might be crying inside.

Sikora: "What one is trying to do is increase the disease burden on the health service..."It is a novel approach, I'll admit.

"No, I think [the Coronavirus] is under control" Sikora witters on, strongly implying that the coronavirus is no biggy, in his dotty, plummy tones. He notes that the situation in Korea and China has gotten "a lot better than it was before," as if it naturally follows that the UK, too, will smoothly sail through this virus which has crippled one of the world's biggest economies, China, for months. And don't forget, China built new hospitals and imposed a total lockdown instead of doing, erm, nothing.

The moderator can't resist asking Sikora why he thinks those two countries had been so successful in combatting Covid-19.

"some countries have more capacity in the health service than we do... we don't have that capacity," Soccoro pronounces confidently, as if this is a good thing instead of a horrifying liability.

At this point, the moderator cuts him off, probably thinking that Sikora has gotten more than enough rope to hang himself with.

So in conclusion: the UK has no capacity and... no plan. Oh, okay! Nothing to worry about here!

Mushrooms, like some British voters, are grown in darkness and are fed on s__t.

Snide comments aside, I really do hope they sort this shit out 'cos I love this country, in spite of its crippling obsession with Imperial Britain. Peace out.