Covid and Aliens

If little green aliens had five minutes to study the intricacies of Namibian mask wearing during a potentially deadly pandemic, they’d warp speed back to their spaceship, project three life-sized holograms in the centre of a sleek silver debriefing room and call it a bust.

The first person to be uploaded from their magic of mechanisms and light would be a man they would have observed at Checkers. Someone’s burly, half-compliant and stoic elder uncle standing two feet ahead of the social distancing stickers placed helpfully on the mall floor while his worn blue surgical mask dangles impotently under his nose.

Amid guttural alien muttering, some furious note-taking and each clearly aghast, the next person to be spun up in a whir of witchcraft and science would be the red-masked woman the extraterrestrials saw glaring irritably at a shopping centre guard.

The petite and pretty young thing who made a show of sticking her hands out for a mandatory spritz of hand sanitiser with enough ire to fuel a revolution before whipping her mask off around the next corner, casually transforming it into a limp and reluctant neck warmer because she has faith in her T cells, everyone else and God.

Blinking weakly in the silver debriefing room, the third person to be summoned in a twinkle of mystery and bloated technical budget would be the blurriest hologram of them all. A young man not wearing a mask around his neck, not carrying one in his pocket and almost definitely thinking “may the best immune system win”.

Regretfully and after fidgeting for a moment with a thingamajig, the tech alien would apologise for the poor quality of the hologram.

Covid-19 being what it is – able to be transmitted through coughs and sneezes, unmasked conversations and proximity to those infected who may show no symptoms – the alien would have gathered his data from a safe and hologram-blurring distance.

By the tech alien’s calculations, the compromising of clear hologram capture and the resultant wrath from his superiors would be a small price to pay to avoid a man clearly playing fast and loose with corona.

In 2020, even before the peak of the pandemic, those five minutes and three slides are all the risk the aliens would be willing to take.

Already receiving transmissions from neighbouring galaxies about a deadly virus sweeping the notoriously chaotic blue planet, the aliens, wary of similar zoonotic diseases on their home planet, would be curious about treatment, preventative measures and compliance.

Namibia, with zero deaths but its infection rate climbing, would seem like a good enough place to safely gather data, and the first order of business should a similar pandemic hit their planet would be quickly logged into the alien’s future files as follows:

“1. Mandatory and proper mask wearing is the first defence against Covid-19, and can significantly slow its spread when there is no treatment, vaccine or cure.

2. When in public, all citizens must cover both their nose and mouth while adhering to strict mask etiquette.

3. Do not permit entry to public spaces if masks are absent, neck warmers or nose hammocks.”

Returning to assess the damage post-Covid-19, perhaps the little green aliens will learn of a yet undiagnosed condition.

The strange, blue rage that comes with seeing people’s noses.

After years of wearing masks, ideally secured over both the mouth and nose for maximum protection against the virus, Covid-19 survivors would have come to see the facial feature as some kind of “f**k you”.

A middle finger, if you will, to public health, the person behind you in a grocery store queue and to grandparents all over the globe.

Long after a viable Covid-19 treatment, vaccine and cure, the mere sight of noses – whether peeking vexingly above masks rendered useless by nasal exposure or not – will be enough to set survivors off, perhaps even earn you a punch on the offending body part.

If little green aliens had five minutes to study the intricacies of Namibian mask wearing during a potentially deadly pandemic, the tech alien would retire from the debriefing room, rummage through his Earth collection and find a hologram he must have essentially butt captured in his haste to leave the ‘doomed’ blue planet.

Flickering in the wan light of his somnum chamber, the tech alien would view just this: The simple sparkle of a baby clumsily adjusting her mother’s fallen mask as the woman anxiously holds her upright in a bank queue.

A bittersweet and prophetic picture of the adult struggling to adjust to a skewed new world and the children who will know better, live better, maybe even save what’s left.

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