Life is not always simple, they say. Certainly, for a corona virus like me it’s neither simple or fair. Well OK, it is actually quite simple, I’m only a single-stranded, positive-sense RNA (ribonucleic acid). Indeed a lot of biologists don’t even consider viruses like me to be alive at all. I certainly take offence at that, virusism at its worst.
But it certainly isn’t fair. There I was, happily infiltrating a bat’s DNA, as my kind have been doing for millennia and I was just about to migrate to the nucleus of my host’s cell, the big push as we call it, when for some reason I found myself part of some unwanted cross-species transmission. It wasn’t my idea I can tell you. I was happy in the bat. I like bats.
A few weeks later, and everywhere you look, you beings at the pinnacle of evolution are blaming me for the collapse of civilisation. It’s not my fault you lot can’t keep your sputum to yourselves. Stop touching each other all the time.
You’ve been responsible for accelerating global warming for more than a hundred years now. I can’t even envisage such a timespan. I can only live for a week or so at best. I have friends who don’t make it past their 3 hour birthday so don’t come whinging to me about having to postpone your annual holiday. I don’t get the chance to even think, well I can’t actually think but you know what I mean, about a holiday.
Let’s examine my raison d’etre, my reason for being. There are a number of theories regarding this.
Some say we viruses represent genetic elements that gained the ability to move between cells or that we were previously free-living organisms that became parasites. Not sure I like the sound of that, hardly a compliment. There’s even a school of thought that says we may be the precursors of life as we know it. Much better.
Then, of course, there are creationists. A creationist is someone who believes in a God who is the absolute creator of heaven and earth, and everything that exists therein.
If that is the case then it’s only logical to assume He also created us. Does that make any sense at all? Why deliberately create something that is only going to cause unpleasantness for others? Maybe He was having a bad epoch. After all, He’s done it before. Take the Naegleria fowleri for example. Also known as the brain-eating amoeba.
Why is it known as the brain-eating amoeba? Take a guess.
These little critters live in warm freshwater, and there’s plenty of that about. Get a few up your nose and before you know it, they will have crept into your cerebrospinal fluid, the clear, colourless body fluid found in the brain and spinal cord. Not long after that, when they fancy a snack, they’ll start munching on your neurons and from then it’s a slippery slope to a nasty death. There is no known cure.
Now I know that I have been responsible for a few deaths around the world, quite a few actually and for that, if I could feel pity, I’d be sorry. But for the most part, nothing happens at all, or maybe you have a bit of a snuffle and some sore joints. What are joints anyway? Within a week or so it’s all over and you’re back to your old polluting ways.
So, before you blame me for forcing you to stay home think about how, when this is all over, you could minimise your own global footprint. Fly less, drive less, eat less meat.
I dream of having a footprint, but even if I did it would only be 0.125 microns wide.
And you think I’m the bad guy?