Many already have. Thousands, actually. Many of them previously healthy.

Which, naturlich, the media won't tell the public about – at least, not over and over and over again, as per the cases! the cases! Of positive tests.

hat you can't get them to stop telling the public about.

It used to be old people in nursing homes who talked about nothing but their ailments – and procedures. Their hip replacements, diverticulitis surgery and various meds. But sickness-obsession has become a national cult and its members are of all ages and both sexes – bound as one by their held-in-common hypochondria.

Holy achoo!

Without the bless you.

It is a strange thing to be an unbeliever in these times of near-universal sickness. Or rather, near-universal obsession with getting sick.

It brings home what one read about what it was like to be a Catholic in Henry V's England – or a Protestant, when his daughter Mary took over.

They didn't wear their sickness on their faces in those days, of course. But it was the same sickness, nonetheless. A belief so fragile it required everyone else share it. Lest the sight of an unbeliever cause one of the Faithful to waver.