The reason we have coronavirus we are too healthy and safe for our own good The US Sun

Publish date: 2024-06-10

LOTS of people are starting to ­wonder why Covid-19 hasn’t really taken off in the ­developing world.

It’s running riot in Europe and America but it’s not really become a thing in large parts of Africa, India and South America.

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Some say this is because the virus doesn’t like hot climates.

Others say it’s because people in places like Tanzania and Rwanda don’t travel very much. I have another theory.

The reason it’s hit us so hard is because our lives are run by health and safety.

We aren’t allowed to cut our fingers at work or bang our heads.

And we aren’t allowed to fall over while shopping, which is why shops must tell you if the floor’s just been cleaned.

And it will have been cleaned because floors must be spotless. Everything must be spotless. Everything must be safe. Everything must be sterile.

There’s a spring on my farm which produces absolutely pure water.

I’ve had it tested so I know there are no impurities at all. But I can’t let you drink it unless I pass it through an ultraviolet filter first.

Shops can’t sell you perfectly good food if it’s ­getting close to going off.

And none of us is allowed to drink unpasteurised milk straight from a cow. Even though I do all the time and it’s fantastic.

We use kitchen cleaning products that kill 99.9 per cent of all germs and wash ourselves with antibacterial soaps.

Abseil into action

When we fall ill, we fill our bodies with antibiotics, and when we use public ­lavatories we hover above the seat rather than sitting down.

And all of this makes me wonder: Are we all now too healthy and safe for our own good?

Out in the poorer bits of Africa, they have to drink from ponds that have dead cows in them, they eat meat that’s not been cooked properly, and when they fall ill as a result, there’s no medicine to help out.

Maybe this means they are more used to relying on their own body’s defences.

Their antibodies are probably match-fit. They’re constantly on the go, fighting off all the harmful invaders.

I know the World Health Organisation predicts 190,000 people in Africa will die from the virus. But that is lower than Europe and the US.

Meanwhile, Western, First World antibodies are never called upon to do anything.

Thanks to our obsession with health and safety, they just sit around in a deckchair all day, drinking martinis.

This means they’re now too fat and out-of-shape to wrestle Covid-19 to the ground and smash its face in.

It’s a theory at least. And if it’s true, it’s good news for me. I’ve spent half my adult life in weird parts of the world, eating cockroaches that have lived in the sewers then died in a pan that was washed out with an oily rag.

I was also brought up by a mother who never sterilised my dummy.

If it fell on the floor, she’d wipe it on her dress and put it back in my mouth.

Hopefully, all this means my antibodies are locked and loaded and ready to abseil into action at a moment’s notice.

Fingers crossed. Fingers crossed, too, that when this is over, we will learn that to stay safe and healthy, we need to get ill from time to time.

Sadly, no Claudia...

BRITISH Naturism is urging everyone in the country to go without clothes today.

Yup. Everything off. Even your face masks, and then into the garden for a nice game of swingball.

They say that if we do this, it will help raise money for charity.

But I’m not sure how. Maybe they think normal people will pay their nudist neighbours to get dressed again?

I’ve never quite understood the appeal of naturism. Not even in my own bathroom. Because there’s a mirror in there and sometimes I catch a glimpse of myself.

The idea of taking that hideous spectacle outside and using it to play swingball is just horrific.

Swingball is horrific. Maybe because it’s exclusively played by naturists. Don’t argue. It is. I used to read H&E magazine when I was a kid so I know.

Once – it was for work, you understand – I went with a colleague to a nudist beach in Mykonos, and it was interesting.

None of the naked people looked like the naked people we see on the internet.

They either looked like me. Or they looked worse.

Certainly, none of them looked like Claudia Schiffer.

The women were all prunes and the men were beetroots.

Most were German. The Germans love nudism.

It’s rumoured Angela Merkel was once a fan. Some say there are even photos, but would you want to see them? No, and neither would I. Even though I have.

Something else I saw on that Greek beach was a man, sitting on a towel and naked, save for a pair of motorcycle boots.

I remember wondering, who decides to go to the beach and thinks: “Right. What do I need? Towel. Sun cream. Motorcycle boots.”

But I didn’t have time to come up with an answer because he fixed my very good-looking (male) colleague with a weird stare and started to pleasure himself.

I haven’t been to a nudist beach since. Or been able to sleep properly.

RIGHT CHOICE?

IT’S very easy for Nicola Sturgeon to keep everyone in ­Scotland locked down and off work.

Yes, this will cause a bloody awful ­economic problem but she knows full well that ultimately, it’ll be solved, by handouts from England.

SEB’S A LOSS TO F1 FUN

THE Formula One season hasn’t even started but already Ferrari has decided to part ways with their number one driver Sebastian Vettel.

This saddens me. Yes, the four-times world champion was made to look a bit wonky by his eight-year-old teammate last year and yes, he did crash into things a lot.

But if it’s true that he’s retiring from the sport, he’ll be a loss to the paddock.

Because, weirdly for a German, he’s the funniest man out there.

It’s well known he’s a Monty Python superfan but actually his favourite comic character is Harry Enfield’s Jurgen the German.

'WRONG LINING UP'

WE’VE all had that moment when something has gone wrong and we know, in a blinding moment of hot embarrassment, we are entirely to blame.

So we can all sympathise with the gunner on an Iranian naval ship this week who put the target in his sights and pulled the trigger.

Only to realise as the missile was on its way that instead of lining up on the target, he’d been lining up on the ship that was towing it.

A WASTE

AT the end of my farm drive, there’s an honesty box. Every morning I fill it with freshly laid eggs, and every evening I collect the money.

Sounds great, yes? But there’s a problem. No shop these days will accept the coins I’ve been given.

Which means I’m providing food and all I’m getting in return is a pile of useless, infected scrap metal.

'VIRUS MAKING'

BRYAN ADAMS, announced on Twitter this week that thanks to “bat-eating, wet market animal-selling, virus-making greedy ­bastards in China” the whole world was on hold.

Naturally, he was called a racist, which is weird as he wasn’t criticising the ­Chinese.

He is a plant enthusiast and was having a go at people who eat meat.

I, however, am not a plant enthusiast, which is why I’m publishing this chart a reader sent me.

1957-1958: H2N2 – originated in China.

1968-1969: H3N2 – China.

1997-2004: H5N1 – China.

2003: Sars – China.

2006: Bird Flu – China.

MOST READ IN NEWS

2013: Porcine Pestivirus – China.

2020: Covid-19 – China.

2009: Swine Flu – some say it originated in ­America. But most agree it was probably China.

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