THE VIEW FROM THE SLIPPERY SLOPE

The Coronavirus is serious. I get that.

They’ve quarantined over 60 million people in China. 60 million! That equals all of Italy! And people have died. Again, not funny. But (of course there’s a but) here’s why I am having such  a hard time grasping the severity of the matter. It’s called the Coronavirus. 

There is no way I am the only person on this planet who thought to myself “Wow! You can get sick from drinking Corona?”

I mean besides hangover sick, or drinking crappy beer sick, I mean sick because of something in the beer, sick. I super quickly realized this was silly. It’s not like the ongoing Ecoli from Chipotle epidemic. There’s no virus in the beer. 

But then I had another thought, Corona is Spanish for Crown! Oh my god it’s a virus you get on the crown of your head!

It’s like lice, but in a more specific region, and you can’t see it and you can get it from someone sneezing on you on the A train! I was working out the scientific logic of this, when I realized there was none. Conclusion:  the virus is not head/crown related.

For a moment I thought it was just a virus for crown-wearing royalty, but heck they’ve already got syphilis and hemophilia – not actually viruses, but still pretty sucky – statistically speaking it seems unlikely they’d get a virus all to themselves.

Funnily enough Jon and I were just in Corona Queens and it didn’t even occur to me that we could get sick. I assume the virus has the same instincts as most of us: going to Queens* is a drag.

So the Coronavirus is a very serious respiratory illness with a very silly name.  The disease naming people really need a better marketing department…