It
seems a year can’t go by without the threat of another pandemic, each one
promised to have a more devastating effect than the last: bird flu. Swine flu.
Bieber fever. And yet things never quite turn out to be as bad as expected,
life inevitably goes on and we all brush it off as a bit of over-zealous media
hype. In many ways, this is fair enough: it’s a well-known fact that our
newsrooms are stuffed full of journalists practically falling over themselves
for an opportunity to blow even the most mundane events into stories of epic
proportion (I’m looking at you, Duncan Garner from 3 News), and I’m sure these
pandemic scares offer them some much-needed variety from the daily grind of
thrusting cameras into grieving relatives’ faces and thinking of tasteless ways
to introduce their next story.
But
just because our mainstream news is sliding towards forehead-slapping new lows
doesn’t mean that a pandemic couldn’t still happen. Could it be that our jaded
attitude towards an increasingly sensationalist media is blinding us to the
fact that a killer virus could sweep the globe and kill us at literally any second?! Think about it:
there could be a shifty-looking rotavirus charging up to your door right now,
just waiting to get all up inside you and have a bit of how’s-your-father with
your immune system.
Then,
of course, there is the small but very real possibly that a virus could spread
through the human populace and turn its victims into brain-dead, flesh-eating
monsters, creating a sort of ‘zombie apocalypse’. Perhaps what is most
disturbing about this scenario is the number of people who are secretly looking
forward to it happening: slightly unhinged folks who just can’t wait to load up
on baseball bats and chainsaws and mow down some zombies for the good of
humanity. But while the thought of taking down zombified versions of childhood
bullies or Duncan Garner from 3 News may be tempting to some, I’m sure most of
us can agree that a zombie-free future would be the more pleasant option.
In
short, we need to be vigilant about our health at all times. To help stave off
any deadly infections, I would advise following these simple steps: 1) Wash your hands before, after and
during meals. 2) Always remember
“five plus a day”: that’s five hours of sleep a night, plus an extra hour in
case of emergencies. 3) Wear a
protective face mask at all times to prevent the ingestion of flu germs,
noxious gases and solid foods. 4)
Lather, rinse, spin, repeat. 5) Don’t get yourself wet, and, whatever
you do, never feed yourself after
midnight. If we stick to these steps then maybe these pandemic scares will
become a thing of the past. Zombie-hunting enthusiasts will be forced to hang
up their anticipatory shotguns, while the news media will continue their slide
into the proverbial toilet unnoticed. We can only hope.
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