Echoes of Flavio's Ghost Dreaming

The schools I teach at are now covered in posters indicating the procedure to follow in case an infection with coronavirus is confirmed -or suspected. The Guildhall School of Music is closed for several weeks now as one case there was confirmed. I'm still not at all sure about all this. The virus exists, it is a problem but it wouldn't seem to be the pandemic that will carry off a quarter of the world's population. The way I see it reported in the media would make one think that this was imminent, The Black Plague v2.0. Also a couple of ancillary phenomena make me scratch my head. Hard. One is that brexiteers are already blaming the virus for any shortages and supply problems coming our way as a result of br*x*t. Another one is how, again in a similar way to br*x*t, it seems to have legitimised a sort of casual racism, most certainly in Italy where members of my family were reposting a radio feature by a politician where he was claiming that 'of course the Chinese would be carriers of disease, they are diseased and filthy, eat unnatural things and live like ants under that communist regime'. But also here, as seen in the media, where people are shunning Chinese restaurants owned by people who never have actually been to China and there have been reports of attacks on public transport, etc. This is very worrying.

The public measures to contain it are perhaps inevitable but, as a self-employed music teacher working in two schools (where I am not a 'real' employee but only get paid for the lessons that actually take place) I dread them far more than the virus -close schools for a month and I'll be on the brink if not actually bankrupt.

Well, I s'pose we'll have to wait and see how it all plays out.