Father Ted got it wrong
If someone told you that by March, every sporting event in Europe would be suspended and every pub and club across Ireland would be shut down as a result of some new killer virus that's decimating Europe, you'd naturally sh*t yourself. There's no shame in admitting it. You, me and everybody here would be bricking it. But now that it's here, things aren't so scary, are they? Yes I know people are dying and it's a serious strain, and it is quite scary, but you just get on with it, don't you? You just get on with things and rapidly adapt to what is the new normal.
I find this interesting because I think the same is true of everything that frightens us. You don't know you're dealing with something until you're actually doing it. I used to be terrified of losing my mum, and although there was a hell of a lot of sadness once it actually happened, it wasn't as bad as I'd built it up to be. I was distraught until I wasn't and that was that.
I'll go one further and say that the world could be faced with a far more sinister type of threat, like zombies or something, and we'd adapt to that very quickly too. I think the more gradual something is, the easier it is to contend with it from a societal point of view.
Over here it's one domino after the next with regards to COVID-19, and it's easier to wrap your mind around when it's like that. If we went from hearing about coronavirus to being effectively on lockdown within a day or two then things would've been far different, for the worse. What's the extent of this panic, some people buying more toilet roll than they need? It's mean, I know, but it's nothing really, if we're honest. It's better than rioting, and looting, and murdering your fellow man or woman out of fear. There's panic, but there's not carnage, not really, and that's because we've been dripfed. We're constantly adapting to a new, temporary reality.
This is starting to sound like a Leo speech, so I'll wrap it up. Bottom line, we're all doing well here. We're sound. Father Ted got it wrong. We're a great bunch of lads, not the Chinese.