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Puzzled. Baffled. Perplexed. Mystified. Confounded. Befuddled.
Strange health phenomena seem to be popping up all around the world these days. Soccer players are collapsing on the field from heart problems. Teenagers and young adults are having heart attacks. Heart defects are on the rise in newborns. And, to hear the media tell it, health experts haven’t the foggiest clue why.
Hmm. If only we had a solid lead.
Some clear, unprecedented health factor affecting a majority of humans around the world just in the past year. A near-universal lifestyle change, perhaps, or a government-mandated medical treatment.
Oh, I know! It’s the devil’s lettuce! Has to be.
But, wait…kids and young adults have been smoking pot since the 70s. That’s not a new phenomenon. And marijuana use is probably not high among European footballers or pregnant women persons. No, there must be something else…
Ah, yes. The answer is so simple.
It’s climate change.
That’s right. The climate is killing babies. Climate change has changed so drastically in the past year that the change is changing women’s birthing persons’ wombs into lethal heart defect chambers.
Meanwhile, on the African continent…
…Scientists are scratching their heads over why there’s no COVID catastrophe. This article appeared eight days ago in the Associated Press.
It seems that even though African countries are among the least vaccinated in the world (at fewer than 6%), lacking resources to monitor and treat COVID cases, and with lax government oversight on lockdowns and mask mandates, African people are failing to die in sufficient numbers. Mystifying, indeed.
Let’s see…if only there were some obvious variable to explain this discrepancy. Some immune defense advantage that African populations have over the rest of the world for fighting off common viruses. A cheap, unpatented, and lifesaving drug perhaps, with antiviral properties, that is widely used for the prevention of diseases endemic to the region. A drug that the World Health Organization has lauded as an “essential medicine.” Or maybe even two of them.
Nope, can’t think of anything.
Oh, but not to worry. That previous headline was a false alarm. Now, just a week later, we’re told by the AP that South Africa, and other southern African countries, are actually in the grip of COVID disaster, after all. A new variant has been discovered, and it’s ravaging the African population, who are literally fighting for their lives in the midst of vaccine shortages, climate change, and systemic racism, probably. So all is right with the world.
This new variant, by the way, has been dubbed “Omicron.” Which is slightly scarier-sounding, but a lot less awesome than my suggestion: Delta DoublePlusUngood Supreme. The experts never listen to me. They’re too busy being puzzled and mystified.
There’s just one hitch in the Omicron narrative, though. There’s no evidence it came from South Africa. I’ll leave you with this lucid explanation from Graeme Codrington, and a reminder to trust your own rational mind over the fear-mongering media and the perplexion of experts.
