IMAGE: Ultra-structural morphology of the novel coronavirus, COVID-19. Image created by CDC, the Center for Disease Control.
BACK IN THE FIFTIES, when I was just a kid living in Mexicali, I used to read lots of comic books. I read a few from Mexican publishers, like El Santo, La Familia Burrónand others, but most were from across the border, from the United States. I read the Spanish language versions of those magazines.
I no longer remember most of those storylines, but there’s one that is hard to forget. Don’t recall some of the details of it, but there’s some stuff in that plot that has stuck with me forever. It had to do with an evil man, a scientist from New York who had created, in a lab, a monster termite able to destroy big buildings almost overnight. Once he let them loose in the heart of New York City, the super termites created havoc in that metropolis. It was a ploy so he could sell building materials that he had also created; products able to withstand the onslaught from those insects.
Unable to overcome the devastation, most New York construction companies were forced to purchase the building materials sold by the evil scientist’s enterprise. If my memory doesn’t fail me and if I remember correctly the “happily ever after” ending stored in my mind’s vault, the one that specializes in memorable stuff, once the builders used those novel materials, New York skyscrapers became indestructible.
Not much was heard from the evil scientist once the city went back to normal. There was good reason for the absence. He had ended up locked in one of his own buildings, the one used as a prototype, showcasing its security and durable materials. The structure was so secure that he had no way of getting out of it or the means to break through its building materials and the special plated glass that guarded the windows. At the end of the story in the comic book, he’s seen indoors, looking out a window from an upper floor, hoping that someone would come and save him. But no one ever did.
Though that tale was a memorable one, it was just make-believe. Something fun to read. Some sixty-plus years later, there’s a story that I wish was also fantasy. It has to do with the ongoing threat caused by the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, which has caused a pandemic that has been generating havoc throughout the world, infecting and killing people and devastating the economies of most countries. As we face these trying times and as I recall the comic book story from the nineteen-fifties and the tale of an evil man that created a super termite for a diabolic purpose, I wonder whether a similar storyline could apply to the COVID-19 threat.
By the way, before deciding to write this article, I did what folks in my trade call due diligence. I did plenty research, in books and online. My main objective was to find more information on the comic book story, the one from the fifties, but I found very little on it, except for something about a fictional character called Humbug, a moniker for another made-up character named Buck Mitty. It was created by Marvel Comics, by the way. I don’t know if he’s the same man in the story I read about the evil scientist, but let’s say that he is and leave it at that. I just wanted to make sure that I remembered the story correctly. You, know, we old guys, we don’t always remember things the way they really were.
Anyway, and going back to the threat at hand, COVID-19, something tells me that the comic book storyline fits well in the comings and goings of the pandemic that is now destroying the planet we once knew. But before continuing with this discussion, I would like to warn readers that my writing has no scientific basis. It’s just a conspiracy theory. There are plenty of those around, about this and other matters. Mine was born in the deepest depths of my seventy-plus years old mind, a place that harbors doubt about everything that enters it. But looking at the conjecture with an open mind and based on tons of trustworthy information about the pandemic, in my humble opinion, I will say that an evil entity caused this virus to profit from its spread. If someone were to ask me how COVID-19 came about, I would reply that the probabilities point to a manmade virus and of an act coldly calculated, with premeditation and malice aforethought. That’s my take on it. Though I lack the detective mind of a Columbo or the obsessive compulsiveness of a Monk, there’s something in the developing timeline about this virus that says, borrowing a line from the bard, that something stinks in Denmark.
There’s no doubt, I’m not the first person to sound off with a conspiracy theory about the novel coronavirus. Some folks blame the Chinese, saying that they created it to create havoc and to attain world hegemony. Some wonder why the virus only affected the city of Wuhan and not other metropolitan areas like Beijing and Shanghai. Though a small ant-eating mammal named pangolin has been blamed for passing the virus to humans, that notion hasn’t been confirmed scientifically, nor that the virus originally came from bats. My thinking is that it was created in a lab, just like the fictional super-termite from the comic book story. And that an individual working on his own behalf or for others spread it for ulterior motives.
But before pointing fingers at possible culprits, we all must first do what is needed to counterattack the chaos and devastation currently being caused by COVID-19. We must obey social distancing rules and abide by the advice given by scientists, doctors and others in the healthcare field. We must also set aside political issues, differences of opinion, and other personal idiosyncrasies. Stopping the COVID-19 threat has nothing to do with party colors, red, blue or otherwise. It is a pandemic affecting us all, here in the United States and throughout the world. Which requires for all of us to work together to bring it to an end.
And something else, we must wholeheartedly provide a hand to those in need. To the sick, to the needy, to the hungry, to our brothers and sisters without a job, and to everyone without the means to feed themselves. And to the first responders. And to thank them for their work.
Author: Pedro Chávez