The 2020 Olympics in Tokyo have been canceled, but there are still medals to be won in the great race to death and bankruptcy in the Coronavirus World Championship.
Currently, the United States, led by President Donald Trump, is in the lead for the gold medal — hotly pursued by the UK, led by Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
The same two captains are in the subsidiary competition for the worst haircuts, giving credence to those that think hairdressers should open sooner rather than later in this lockdown.
This championship is unique in that no country is eager to make the final. Countries as diverse as New Zealand, South Korea and Germany trail behind in the death counts of the two great English-speaking nations.
This has proven a boon to Ireland, whose less than stellar performance may nudge it into the finals. Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Leo Varadkar looks positively world class when compared to Trump and Johnson. Despite rivaling the super-heroes in his late decision to lock down, lack of adequate testing and high nursing-home deaths, he has avoided public criticism.
How so, you may ask? Since the Great Famine of 1847, the Irish have looked westward to the United States. Since independence in 1922, the population have looked East to its former colonial oppressor Great Britain.
Every major Irish newspaper, radio and television outlet has a London and New York correspondent. The Irish, with the highest per capita newspaper readership in the world, are as familiar with the politics of the two big nations as their own.
Donald Trump does not have the support of a single Irish commentator and Johnson is held in equally low esteem. The Irish are Democrats in the U.S., and become Republicans when wealthy. Similarly, arriving poor in the UK as Socialists and support capitalism when they buy a house.
Thus Varadkar looks like a combination of Martin Luther King, JFK and FDR at his news conferences when compared to chaotic performances in D.C. and London.
Happy days are here again for Ireland’s Health Minister Simon Harris. Before the pandemic struck he was reckoned to be the worst incumbent in the position in the 100-year history of the country. Now invariably pictured with sleeves rolled up, as he supposedly works night and day to save the citizens.
He even survived his awful boo-boo in talking about the previous 18 COVIDs before COVID-19, by shrugging it off at a news conference with the remark: “Ah sure, I can be an awful old idiot sometimes.” Lucky for him his opposite number in London is a bigger idiot and even the Daily Telegraph — which is to Johnson what Fox News is to Trump — has lost patience.
The divide between Ireland and the U.S. in relation to the death toll is stark. Trump clearly believes that the cure may be worse than the disease and has placed his re-election bet on reopening the economy.
Ireland is losing $2 billion a week because of an extremely cautious approach. Astonishingly the plan was criticized from 12,000 miles away by the Prime Minister of New Zealand, who doubted that a country of a similar economy and population could exit the lockdown in a good place.
The victory ceremony will not take place for at least a year and the fatalities gold medal may yet go to an outsider. My bet is that the USA will not be on the rostrum.
To paraphrase Admiral Yamamoto after Pearl Harbour: “The COVID-19 may have awakened a sleeping giant.”
