Predictable and unpredictable

Likewise the slurry of health fascism embodied in that failed and unfit for purpose pressure group, Public Health England. This is the organisation that counts its biggest health policy triumph as banning smoking on hospital grounds, whilst conveniently ignoring levels of multi-drug resistant TB in London greater than in Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan and Ethiopia. PHE has not only failed in every respect to prepare for a novel pandemic, it has failed to co-ordinate measures to combat the old ones; our crowded cities are as vulnerable to Cholera, dysentry, typhus and parasitic diseases as they were in mid-Victorian times. Now they are actually obstructing efforts to fund a way out of the virus stasis. But it seems that for the most important departments in PHE – those charged with campaigning against alcohol, sugar and fried chicken – it’s business as usual. A prize for the first reader to spot the PHE advice warning that drinking alcohol at home during the Wuhan virus crisis should be banned. Again, entirely predictable.

D list celebrities are finding it hard to break through the new hard mood of national purpose. Several have made efforts to use the crisis for self publicity only to be slapped down with great force by social media (I knew it would be useful some day ..). Even Meghan Markle, who must be throwing tantrums of frustration at her lack of column inches, has become transparent. Her latest wheeze, spending an hour handing out sandwiches in an LA homeless shelter, then having her people ‘leak’ the story of her ‘secret’ charity work, has fallen as flat as a damp chapati. Give your money to the NHS, sweetie – it’s the only thing that works, as the Duke of Westminster (£12.5m) and Ed Sheeran (£1m) are finding. And Capt. Tom Moore has raised £12m from the little people. All entirely predictable.

Rod Liddle, always a ray of sunlight in the gloom, penned a thoughful piece on the importance of cigarettes during the crisis for the Speccie. He even joked

It is even just about possible that the precise opposite is true, and that smoking conveys a degree of protection against Covid-19, much as it does against Parkinson’s disease, ulcerative colitis, endometrial cancer and possibly skin cancer and thyroid cancer. Though I wouldn’t bet on it.

Well, it may not be such a joke. It seems that ACE2, the protein to which the SARS-CoV-2 virus sticks in the upper respiratory tract in a fresh infection, in impacted by nicotine in a way that enhances resistance to the virus. The evidence is not in the bag as yet, but initial anecdotal evidence about the low incidence of Covid-19 amongst smokers is now being thoroughly tested – and you can bet that the tobacco giants are putting their hands in their pockets to help fund it. Now if it turns out that shares in BAT, Philip Morris, Imperial and Altria are as much marked as winners as Glaxo, that truly would be unpredictable. And if vaping nicotine in offices and public places became an accepted prophylactic against the Wuhan virus, prescribed and funded by the NHS, the increase in apoplexy amongst the nation’s health fascists would be a small price to pay.