SA, you may want to stockpile the hand sanitiser while you still can

Thursday: I’m in Dublin in my art class when Rosemary, who is standing next to me, sneezes.

She’s just back from a skiing trip to northern Italy. “Corona,” she says.

“Patient Zero,” I say.

We all laugh, but there’s an edge to it.

Everybody ’s jumpy. At least 29 people have died in Italy and the northern region of Lombardy is all but under lockdown. Meanwhile, the list of affected countries grows.

For Ireland, for South Africa, it’s just a matter of time.

Chinese businesses in Dublin are already feeling the squeeze, as if merely being Asian is a risk, even a million miles away from Wuhan, the epicentre.

Friday: it is announced that someone who recently flew into Dublin airport has now tested positive for Covid-19. Like Rosemary, she had been on holiday in northern Italy.

Was she perhaps on Rosemary’s flight?

“Sars is a coronavirus too,” says my son, who is in his final year of an immunology degree.

This is all fascinating to him, on paper at least, as he watches the virology and epidemiology he studies unfolding in real time.

It’s also worrying: his girlfriend is on immunosuppressants for juvenile rheumatoid arthritis.

If she catches the virus, well … This is why we all need to take precautions to protect the herd.

The lad explains: “Sars is more deadly. However, Covid-19 is more contagious.”

There’s no cure, little treatment and a vaccine is a year away.

Saturday: I go shopping early.

I stock up on tinned food, loo rolls, dry pasta, bottled water, and painkillers. Armageddon groceries. The World Health Organisation has upgraded the risk to “very high”.

Frequent and thorough hand washing is the first line of defence, they say, so I try to buy hand sanitiser too, but the entire city is literally cleaned out. Still, I see people on the streets coughing without covering their mouths, strangers casually spitting phlegm into the gutters … The clock ticks.

Sunday: the Republic of Ireland now has its first confirmed victim.

This brings the number of affected countries to 64.

We’re near tipping point. Chances are we’re all going to get it, or at least know someone who will.

My South Africa, may I suggest you stockpile sanitiser while you can?

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