A Testing Time

With the world closing in around me, it was time to take the test. A quick trip to my local chemist and I had my COVID Self-test kit, wrapped up in an impressive box.

It was only when I got home that I discovered that I had been given the wrong kit. A glance at the many pages of detailed instructions was enough to show me that I was holding an IQ test. Yes, surely the kit was designed to test my Intelligence Quotient.

Only someone with a doctorate in chemistry would have a chance of understanding the complicated procedure. There are no less than 17 steps to be taken before getting a result.
How is the “man on the street” supposed to deal with that?

We should be asking who is behind the many attempts to make us fear the worst; that the end of the world is in sight. As Michael Crichton wrote in his novel, State of Fear, for some time entirely natural disasters have been used to fool a gullible public into believing that global-warming is responsible.

Now, Omicron, a very unpleasant but not unusual form of flu, is being used to scare us into giving up our freedom, our way of life. Families are torn apart, friends seen only on Skype. We hang on the words of yet another “expert,” trotted out to tell us what we can, and mostly can’t, do. Some, long-gone, dictators would be astonished at how easy it is to control the world without the need for armies and secret police.

In the UK, COVID testing rules are to be relaxed and isolation periods shortened as staff shortages are crippling the country. There seems to be a struggle between a thriving economy and a few dead people. I suspect that the economy will be the winner. People are prepared to carry on sleeping when some government mismanagement is revealed but wake up very quickly when their pockets are hit.

But back to the test. A solution is in sight, my 12-year-old grand-daughter is risking a visit. Like all her generation, she is an expert “tester.”