Some coronavirus sanity – Britain is infected (the world is infected) … by a bad case of madness

‘Yes, you are right. We have gone quite mad. I know that many people are thinking this, but dare not say so.

I will be accused of all kinds of terrible things for taking this view – but that is another aspect of how crazy things are.

Yes, coronavirus poses a risk. No, our response to it is not intelligent or useful. In fact, I think it is increasingly damaging and will soon become more so.

The key word here is proportion. There is nothing wrong with simple, practical precautions.

I have for many years believed that door handles pose one of the greatest threats to health, and try never to touch them with the naked hand. I was taught from my earliest years to wash my hands before eating.

I am a health faddist. I work at a standing desk. For many years I have walked and bicycled wherever I can.

I often take the stairs rather than the lift. I can’t understand how anyone in my generation or younger can smoke, given what we know about it.

I regard sugar as a delicious poison to be avoided as much as possible. I drink little. I get up early and go to bed early.

I believe cars are heart-attack machines, noisy, smelly, ugly devices, which depreciate in the gutter while they are not stopping us from exercising and wrecking our lower backs.

Yet our country is so badly planned that few families can manage without them nowadays.

For these reasons, I reckon that my risk from coronavirus is quite small. If I catch it, and I quite possibly will, I doubt it will trouble me all that much. ‘