The Invisible Enemy

As the Queen wishes us all well in dealing with coronavirus, having barricaded herself safely into Windsor Castle, Ive been left pondering the nature of coincidence.  Twice in the past couple of days I've heard the pandemic referred to as 'The Invisible Enemy' - once by Trump, then again tonight by Johnson, during his latest Covid-19 briefing.  Coincidentally, I've lately found myself thinking a lot about that seventies Doctor Who serial, 'The Invisible Enemy', particularly with regard to the current health crisis.  You remember - it was the one where the Doctor (played back then  by Sir Tom of Baker) finds himself infected by a virulent and sentient virus.  In fact, he finds himself invaded by the virus swarm's nucleus, which plans to use him as part of its plans to dominate the galaxy.  So what do you do under such circumstances: take a couple of aspirin and self-isolate for a week?  Not if you are Tom Baker, obviously.  He creates miniaturised clones of himself and his companion, the lovely Leela, which are injected into his body to, quite literally, fight the virus.  It sort of works, in that the nucleus is, indeed, forced to leave the Doctor's body - but grows to 'macro' size and heads off to breed a new, full-size, version of the virus swarm.  (Don't worry, the Doctor goes in hotpursuit and puts paid to its plans).

I found myself pondering whether this idea, of deploying miniature human clones, might be a viable strategy for combating the current coronavirus outbreak.  I mean, it fits in with the war-like rhetoric currently favoured by political leaders when it comes to Civid-19: lots of talk of 'fighting' the virus, or being in a 'war' with it.  All of which, of course, are nonsense - you can't fight a virus in any literal sense, it isn't really alive even, it doesn't know anyone is 'fighting' it.  It doesn't even know what we are, we're just a convenient vector for its transmission.  All this invocation of the 'Blitz Spirit' is entirely inappropriate: the virus isn't the Luftwaffe, you can't send a squadron of Spitfires out to shoot it down as it attacks London.  (Although, to be fair, there was a lot of crime during the Blitz, as looters took advantage of the chaos to rob bomb damaged homes and shops - much as the 'panic buyers' are doubtless taking advantage of the current situation to stockpile goods they will try to sell at inflated prices when things get really bad and we're all in lock down).  But to get back to 'The Invisible Enemy', not only does it provide a way of literally fighting the virus, but it makes it a more tangible foe by giving it sentience and malign purpose.  Someone has to sell this idea to Trump or Johnson - both seem to be clutching at straws and willing to latch onto just about any 'miracle cure' for the virus - I'd just love to hear one of them start prattling on to the media as to how they are going to clone themselves, miniaturise those clones, then inject them into a Covid-19 victim in order to defeat the virus in a stand up fist fight.  It's the kind of absurd diversion from this mess we desperately need.

But perhaps there are other pop culture 'cures' we can sell to our leaders: the deployment of voodoo witch doctors, perhaps?  Or Star Trek type transporters which dematerialise you and, when rematerialising you, filter out the virus?  How about virus-eating alien parasites?  Or a few child sacrifices to the Devil?  Or maybe it could be revealed that Atlantis has risen from the ocean and that the Atlanteans have released this virus to wipe us out and reclaim the planet for themselves?  Consequently, a team of Vietnam vet soldiers of fortune have been sent to deal with them and defeat the virus.  The possibilities are endless.  But don't worry, according to Boris, in twelve weeks time we'll have turned the corner - probably to find ourselves facing an oncoming bus.