The search for what anyone might call good news, OK news, relatively palatable news, grows more difficult and tedious every day as we start the second half of 2020, yet this column shall not be deterred, so we offer you this.
You are probably not getting the plague.
The bubonic plague, that is — the honest-to-God Europe-flattening, millions and millions felled by the Black Death strain of pathogen that haunted the history books for vast and horrid slices of the second millennium.
You needn’t worry about that.
Probably.
Still, I’m keeping an eye on that squirrel in Colorado for you.
Maybe you saw him on the CBS News Twitter feed, the squirrel in the short video in which he emerges from a little den in a tree trunk, cavorts, as squirrels will, along a number of the tree’s limbs, and leaves the distinct impression that he — yeah, this little guy — is the one who tested positive for bubonic plague.
But this isn’t THE squirrel, just A squirrel, and another small part of the reason people don’t trust the mainstream media. It further leaves some of us wondering how, in the current climate, a squirrel managed to get a test, short of claiming he was a member of the Colorado Rockies bullpen. I don’t remember the president saying that anyone who wants a test for the bubonic plague can get a test, not that he wouldn’t if he thought there was some personal advantage in it.
The fact is, the squirrel only got a positive test post-mortem, after someone in Morrison, Colo. reported seeing “at least 15 dead squirrels around town,” according to a spokesperson for Jefferson Country Public Health. Dead squirrels being fairly common, this got me thinking about how many dead squirrels I’d have to see around town to call somebody about it. Amazingly, I think it’s about 15.
The good news, OK news, relatively palatable news is that even though authorities in Colorado assume the other dead squirrels had the plague as well, modern antibiotics have long been effective against it and it remains exceedingly rare in the United States. If a tick carrying the bubonic plague attached itself to a mouse that got itself swallowed by a cat — say your cat — and your cat then coughed on you, antibiotics would likely be recommended. But you’re not getting it. Probably.
The more relevant good news, which we’ll cautiously call the even better news today, is that our regular Murder Hornets Update includes hard evidence that the Asian giant hornets who’ve been chomping the heads off honey bees in Washington State since late April have not been discovered migrating to Texas, where clearly they’ve got enough problems.
This we know courtesy of the talented entomologists at Texas A&M, who reported just the other day that they’ve been “inundated” with photographic evidence from concerned Texans that the murder hornets have invaded the Lone Star State.
So wait, there are people out there who, confronted with a scientific question, referred those questions to scientists? How about that. And it wasn’t necessarily because the lieutenant governor was busy.
Turns out it’s easy to mistake a Texas native cicada killer for a murder hornet, but before I tell you what it is, let me just go on record as saying that if at least one minor league baseball team in Washington and another in Texas does not change its name to the Murder Hornets or the Native Cicada Killers, someone’s just plain not thinking. A murder hornet’s head is wider than its shoulders, while a native cicada killer’s head is not. A murder hornet’s abdomen is covered in smooth brown and orange stripes, while the stripes on a native cicada killer are jagged and sometimes look like mountains.
You’re welcome.
In early May, there was enough concern about the potential for the murder hornet invasion that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott asked that a task force be mobilized to prepare. Texas A&M’s scientists took the lead on that without being able to note the irony that it took Mr. Abbott until July 2 to issue a statewide mask mandate to prevent the spread of coronavirus, which was already there.
“It’s about time,” San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg told the New York Times. “Unfortunately it has been heavily politicized by state and federal leaders in Texas and across the country. I hope its effectiveness is not blunted by the severity of the surge that we’re seeing.”
Don’t we all? At least for the moment, though, you’re not getting the plague, probably, and Texas remains murder hornet-free. It’s what passes for good news.
Gene Collier: gcollier@post-gazette.com and Twitter @genecollier.
First Published: July 21, 2020, 9:30 a.m.
Updated: July 21, 2020, 10:41 a.m.
