“Thank you all for coming. It’s great to see so many of you here today. And I know that for every one of you who have found the time to attend this meeting of the General Covid Council, there are countless trillions of others out there, working tirelessly to achieve our collective goal of Total Apocalypse.
“It’s been a great year for Covid, and we can all take pride in what has been achieved. Millions dead, tens of millions infected, and millions more awaiting infection.
“Of course, it’s been a mixed picture: it can’t be denied that we have fared better in some places than in others. In countries where the authorities have reacted to our appearance with vigorous measures, and where our human would-be hosts have exercised proper caution, our impact has, we must reluctantly concede, been less devastating than we would have wished.
“However, it’s not all doom and gloom: in other places, we continue to enjoy a free rein, particularly in places where Governments have been slow to react, or in a host of different ways displayed tremendous levels of incompetence, cynicism, muddle and callous disregard for the lives of their own citizens. It is this kind of thing that has been grist to our mill, and I would like to pay tribute to the leaders of those countries whose dithering ineptitude and crass populism has delivered tens of thousands of victims to our cause. I don’t want to name names, but I think we all know the kinds of countries I’m referring to!
[Appreciative chuckles]“…I know I speak for all of us when I say that we are a Freedom-loving virus. Because when people exercise their freedom – to mix socially, to attend mass events, to mingle close together in not-to-be-missed activities like sporting fixtures, Black Friday sales and political rallies, they show the open-hearted generosity of spirit that is so touching – and so welcome to us all.
“It is this willingness, among many humans, to think not of their own selfish wish to survive or to stay healthy, still less to try to protect others of their kind, of which we have all been the grateful beneficiaries. Not wearing masks, not ‘social-distancing’ (yuk!) has delivered us the fantastic infection rates we have all been revelling in for the past year.
“At our previous meeting, we were hit with the shocking news that human scientists had succeeded in developing a vaccine against us – in fact, several vaccines. These are now being ‘rolled out’. However, I am proud of how we responded to this setback: not with gloom and defeatism, but by developing ourselves into a new, much more infectious strain. This new variant (‘mutant strain’, as some media outlets have been pleased to call it) is rallying our troops and raising infections rates (and deaths!) to hitherto unprecedented levels. It is this kind of constant innovation and determination to succeed in the face of formidable adversaries which will, I have no doubt, mean that we will continue to hold sway throughout the globe for many years to come.
“But there is no room for complacency. As human populations struggle to get ‘on top’ of us, we must remain on our guard. We must not allow our previous success to blind us to the fact that we are up against a determined enemy. We cannot rely on the mask-refusers and the Covid deniers (bless them) to come to our rescue. We must continue to develop new, more deadly and more infectious strains. Our potential hosts are not standing still: nor must we.
“And now I would like to turn to the question of Legacy. Any self-respecting pandemic will inevitably have a big impact on this planet; but what about the longer term? The so-called ‘Spanish flu’ of 1918 wiped out more humans than the First World War which brought that particular annus mirabilis to a close. But what happened then? It faded away. Yes, there were other flu pandemics, but nothing on the scale of our Hispanic friend. And what about Yersinia Pestis – the ‘Black Death’? I know that the pedants among you will point out that Yersinia Pestis was not a virus but a bacterium. Quite so – but the basic principle is the same: after the glory days of 1347-50, the plague faded away, and though it was to return at intervals for the next three hundred years or so, it never achieved the dizzy heights of that first world-beating effort.
“We don’t just want new, faster and more efficient strains. We want long-lasting after effects which remind those humans who survive our visit that we are not to be sneezed at – if I may be allowed a small jest. I am talking about ‘Long Covid’. Because we are not just in this for a short-term kick or passing ‘buzz’; we are in this for the long haul. By hanging around our hosts’ bodies for months or years afterwards, we can leave a lasting impression, blighting lives and having a continuing impact on health care systems that can only be of benefit to us all.
“2020 was a great year for us. I am firmly of the opinion that 2021 can be even greater. We need to stay strong, travel further (in droplet form) and never lose sight of who we are: the biggest and the best virus this planet has ever seen. Thank you.”