So I am already seeing widely scattered stories on various media outlets about a growing epidemic of a mosquito-born illness in the Far East, especially in China – apparently in regions way outside of where the chikungunya virus is normally endemic. The usual international medical orgs regard this with grave concern … and these developments send mine and other bloggers and commenters who possess sensitive antennae and long memories into twitching nervously. It’s all too familiar … it’s hideously reminiscent of how the Covidiocy crept up on us with soft little cat feet. And then the various big media outlets took the bit in their teeth – likely in a frantic effort to grab audience share by scaring the snot out of those who normally don’t think much about such matters, but whom are horribly gullible when it comes to believing what they see on TV and read in the scorching headlines.

Panic sells big-time, almost more than sex does.

And a panicked populace demand that their leaders and governments to “do something! Anything!” Which an unfortunate number of political leaders will do, especially when they get a naughty thrill out of letting their inner authoritarian out for a sanctioned romp … and there we were, a little short of five years ago. We went from ‘two weeks of lockdown to flatten the curve and prevent overwhelming hospitals!’ to damn near three years of horrors; varying degrees of house arrest, social isolation, a perfect storm of destruction for small businesses, bars and restaurants, plexiglass shields at the grocery store, directional stickers on the floors, those stupid useless cloth masks everywhere, interfering Karens lecturing you about standing too close to another person or daring to walk on a beach in the open air, and the worst of it – a useless and likely dangerous vaccine for what ought to have been seen as only slightly more dangerous than the yearly reoccurring flu. (Too many people were told to get the vaxx or be fired. I can’t see that employers – corporate or government – will ever apologize for that. Because that would mean admitting they were wrong, and THAT will never happen. Not in this world.)

I can only hope that perhaps spraying for mosquitos and telling people that perhaps long sleeves and window screens are the best suggested defense against chikungunya, and that maybe the media and public health authorities won’t loose their damn minds over this new proposed epidemic … but too many in the news media got their jollies fomenting panic, and too many authority figures in governments in the USA and elsewhere discovered that they loved-loved-loved exercising their newfound authority and bossing their citizens around. Will they try it all again? Or are we all at a point where most of us will stand up and tell them to fold their health-n-safety dictates until it’s all sharp corners and shove it up where the sun never shines. Discuss; will they try it again? And will it succeed in any degree?