An Irishman's Diary

The first human casualty of an animal plague is logic

The first human casualty of an animal plague is logic. In our blind terror at what nature may have in store for us, we abandon almost everything which mankind has learnt since the Renaissance, and revert to hocus-pocus, wild rumour and wilful ignorance, with maybe soon the ducking stool for public dissenters. Scientists tell us that's there's no danger whatever of F & M being transmitted here on the wind from Britain, and instantly people are running around in circles, screaming: "Don't panic, don't panic, foot and mouth's arriving from Britain by wind, we're doomed, we're doomed, don't panic, don't panic."

Airborne journey

You don't have to be a scientist to work out how difficult it is for F & M to make the airborne journey to Ireland, even from Anglesea. Consider the herd of 30 infected cows there, producing a plume of viruses. For the virus to infect a beast in Ireland, the plume would have to be taken by the wind across the Irish sea, remaining essentially intact all the way. During its journey, it could be washed into the ocean by rain, swept into the stratosphere by upcurrents, spread widely and dispersed by lateral winds, or destroyed by sunlight. And once it has made the hazardous journey, the miraculously intact plume-residents have to find the nostrils of a cow, pig or sheep to invade - not individually, but in sufficiently large numbers for infection to occur.

I have news to break to you here: viruses aren't smartbombs. They haven't got laser thermal-imaging which enables them to target a sheep in Wicklow from their base near Holyhead. They are blind and stupid, can't travel against the westerlies which normally prevail, and they don't know the difference between O'Connell Street in Dublin and a byre in Leitrim. And though downwind transmission is certainly a possibility close to a farm, it is virtually impossible over any distance.

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Put it his way. If you walked around a field in North Wales with a canister of talcum powder, sprinkling it into the breeze, would you expect to hit a herd of Friesians in Louth with it? Or if you had a fly-spray in that same field, how confident are you that you could kill a bluebottle on a cow's nose in Westmeath with it? Not too confident? That's good. Such sensible pragmatism is a credit to your upbringing.

So why can we not be as wise about F &M? Why do we prefer scary headlines to calm, sensible ones? Why do we take comfort from perfectly meaningless precautions, such as disinfected strips of carpet outside restaurants in the centre of Dublin? Are ????? not in fact making herd-signals to one another when we follow epidemiologically meaningless antiF & M rituals, reassurances to one another that we take the matter seriously?

Social statement

As indeed we should. But is it so wrong to acknowledge that the reason why I perform the irrelevant ceremony of wiping my feet on a magic mat as I enter a building is not to kill any viruses but to make a social statement, in much the same way that unbelievers in small communities go to church on Sundays? For we know a couple of things about this virus. The stupidity which means that it can't home in on a herd of cows in Ireland from its bomber base in Britain means that it doesn't know the difference between the sole of a shoe and the upper, or a trouser leg from a shirt cuff, a feather boa from an earlobe.

Nor is there anything about the virus which suggests that it lives on the ground like a leech, poised and ready to hitch a free ride on passing shoe-leather. So, if it is to be transmitted by humans to other humans at all, it is most likely to be via their lungs. A couple of questions here: why are we not all wearing masks? Why are pubs, with their shared glasses, not all closed? When did one person ever give another person foot-and-mouth disease? And when did the second infected person last pass on the disease to animals? Has it ever happened? If not, why are those who know about the aetiology of the disease not being frank with us about this? Is it because a consensus has gathered around the notion that in times of plague, as in times of war, experts will allow benign falsehoods prosper simply to keep morale up, to bind the community even closer?

Lie about AIDS

Ten years ago, we were told the big lie about AIDS - that we were all at risk. Politicians and doctors congregated at the well of the agreed fiction that the disease was about to sweep through the entire community. People who dissented, who declared that the illness was extremely difficult to transmit by heterosexual activity, and that it was confined to certain at-risk groups - prostitutes, homosexuals, drug addicts, haemophiliacs - were bullied into silence. We were told a lie because those in power thought it was good for us.

It is not good for us. It elevates pre-scientific hysteria to the level of public policy. It is a rejection of reason in favour of a formalised but moderated mob law to achieve the appearance of social cohesiveness. Such a goal might not be a bad thing; but at the very least, we should be aware of what it really is - not a genuine precaution, but politically desirable anti-knowledge, the public health equivalent of throwing some spilt salt over your shoulder.