The Coronavirus Chronicles -Three Strikes You're Out

[Cormanus]

I apologise for being momentarily serious, but this thread has raised questions of whether riding a motorcycle for pleasure is an OK thing to do in the current circumstances. It isn't.

And not because riding a motorcycle is likely to infect you.

The reason the authorities don't want bicycles, cars, motorcycles, people anything much moving around is that, on the evidence of the way coronavirus spreads, almost all the countries from which this forum draws its members are already past the point where their health systems will be able to cope with all the coronavirus patients needing intensive care. Maybe putting that the other way will be clearer: there will be way more COVID19 patients needing intensive care that our hospitals can treat. And that assumes they don't have to deal with anything else like road accident trauma, cardiac disease, strokes, diabetic and asthma attacks, etc, etc. That's why many countries are working hard to 'flatten the curve'. It probably won't reduce the number of infections; but it will mean they're more spread out which will give hospitals and the medical system a better chance of being able to respond and reduce the number of horrendous choices health professionals will have to make.

So, just at the moment, it's not all right to anything that puts you at risk of injury unless you absolutely have to for the simple reason that, if you do get hurt, you'll be putting further pressure on a health system that is, or is about to be, overwhelmed.

A friend of mine pointed out the other day that geezers are not only more likely to be seriously harmed by coronavirus, but are also in the 'throw-on-the-scrap-heap' age range. When the hospitals start having to make the really hard choices about who gets treated and lives and who doesn't and dies—and they almost certainly will—you don't want to be where the scales are already loaded against you.