In a development that has triggered both champagne corks and furrowed brows at the Ministry of Hair-Shirt Panic, the World Health Organisation has announced that Ebola case numbers have fallen in the latest outbreak. But hold your celebratory G&Ts, because British experts – those noble souls who have mastered the art of seeing shadows in broad daylight – are now cautioning that hidden cases may still be lurking in the African bush, just waiting to pop up and ruin our summer holidays.
Yes, the virus that gave us all a legitimate reason to avoid handshakes for a full year is apparently playing hard to get. According to Dr. Peregrine St. John-Blackstock of the London School of Pants-Wetting, “While the decline is welcome, we must remain vigilant. The data suggests that for every reported case, there could be two or three quietly convalescing in a yurt somewhere, possibly while knitting and humming the theme to ‘The Archers’.”
This is, of course, music to the ears of the British press, which has been starved of a good panic since the last time a non-British bee sneezed near a hive. Headlines are already being prepared: “Ebola: The Hidden Horde,” “Is Your Couscous Infected? The Shocking Truth,” and “Five Ways Your Nephew’s Gap Year Could Bring Down Western Civilisation.”
The WHO, meanwhile, has been its usual self of measured optimism, pointing out that the outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo is now largely contained. But no, my lovelies, that’s not dramatic enough. We need a narrative that involves a bespectacled boffin in a tweed jacket poring over spreadsheets while muttering about the “tip of the iceberg” and “looming catastrophe.”
Let us not forget the role of that most reliable of British institutions: the charity with an acronym that sounds vaguely like a cat coughing up a hairball. ‘Ebola Orphans for Ethical Knitting’ has already launched a new campaign: “One Pound a Week Could Save a Hamster from a Lorry.” The money, they assure us, will go directly to “awareness programmes” and “administrative oversight.”
So what is the actual risk to you, dear reader, sitting in your mock-Tudor semi-detached in Surbiton? Approximately zero. But that doesn't stop our experts from enjoying a good fret. It’s like telling a terrier that the postman isn't a threat – the dog will still bark because it’s in his nature. And it’s in the nature of UK health experts to look at a glass that is 99% full and announce, “But what about that 1%? That 1% could contain a novel coronavirus with a flair for the dramatic.”
Let us raise a toast to the hidden cases of Ebola, those ghostly patients who exist only in the fever dreams of epidemiologists and the spreadsheets of grant-hungry researchers. May they continue to keep our headlines filled with gloom, our charity shops brimming with unwanted jumpers, and our gin consumption at suspiciously high levels.
In other news, the government has announced a new taskforce to “investigate the potential for hidden outbreaks of common sense in Westminster.” They are expected to conclude that no such outbreak is possible, and that funding should be increased for further study. But that’s a story for another day, when the gin has run dry and the news cycle is truly desperate.
