Better virus names

Having recently won a week-long battle with the latest virus going around — Virus B.ex,1295.plustax or something like that — two things occurred to me: one, no one gets an ordinary cold anymore, and two, the medical world needs to come up with generic virus names that we can understand and remember. Like hurricanes, for instance.

actly what it is we have, even if we don’t have a clue what the name means or represents.

In some respects, it’s like the octane rating on gasoline. Most of us, me included, have no idea what an octane is, but for some reason we believe that having 89 of these octanes isn’t quite as good as having 92 of them.

We do know what a virus is, of course, but giving it an alphanumerical label doesn’t do diddly for us nonscientific types, which is why I propose going with the weather naming convention.

By Stewart Dobson

Although we regular people sound pretty smart when we say, “Yeah, I came down with Virus 2B.or.Not2BVariantSubsection 2.a,” the fact is that name means nothing to us or to the people whose eyes are rolling back in their heads as we go on and on about it.

Besides, does it make any difference if you had variant six, seven, eight or even the 2-46-8-Who-Do-We-Appreciate virus, when all you really know is that you spent the last seven days feeling like homemade doo-doo? Would you have felt better had you been able to refer to it as Virus 653048R.5 instead?

And whatever happened to covid-1 through 18 anyway? Surely, these respiratory ailments must have been the precursors to covid-19, but no, they were never mentioned to the public.

My guess is because medical science decided after conducting extensive research that “I’ve come down with something,” “I’ve come down with something bad,” and “I feel like homemade ...” worked just fine ... up until now.

Since the designation business began, someone somewhere wants us to know ex-

What I’m saying is if The Weather Channel believes that naming winter storms will make them easier to remember (remember Winter Storm Howard from last year? Me either), then giving viruses regular names will do the same thing.

I ask you, which is easier to remember, SARs B.1.621, B.1.621.1 or, for puposes of casual conversation, “Virus Bob?”

“On the medical front,” the TV news anchor says, “SARS B.1, 621.e-i-e-i-o is beginning to show up on the East Coast.”

And that means what exactly?

On the other hand, if the anchor says, “Virus Bob is bearing down on the East Coast ... 31 million people impacted,” that tells viewers to be on the lookout, because this ain’t a case of the sniffles.

I think this will work. I know I would have felt better when I had Subvariant Expletive Deleted last week, because at least I could have cursed it on a more personal level.

Somehow wheezing out “Damn you, SARS Cov-2, Sub-element Fritter-Fratter,” doesn’t have the same punch as saying, “I hate you, Bob, I really do.”

Harris knowingly impedes economic progress

Editor, Congressman Andy Harris has represented the Eastern Shore in Congress for the last 12 years.

Despite the fact he is a lifelong resident of the western shore, he has spent his time in office desperately trying to prevent the good paying jobs and economic development of offshore wind from coming to our region.

Since the announcement of Maryland’s two offshore wind projects, Skipjack Wind & MarWin, Congress- man Harris has continuously and knowingly spread misinformation about the offshore wind industry.

In 2019, he unfoundedly claimed offshore wind would be a national security risk. Today, Congressman Harris is claiming that offshore wind is responsible for a dead whale washing up on Assateague Island recently.

We know Congressman Andy Harris is lying about off-shore wind being responsible for the whale death because the local company building the project, Ørsted is not currently conducting offshore survey activity for Skipjack Wind.