1.  Ridicule. Cut the coronavirus down to size with some well-placed mocking. By abbreviating the name from Covid-19 to just C19, you can turn it from a deadly virus into a rubbish cassette tape.
                                    C30, C60, C19 Go!
2.  Boo for Boris. We clap the care workers to show our appreciation, so why not raise our spirits with a regular session in which we boo the government whose ineptitude has made the UK the Covid capital of Europe [1.], and who have scapegoated the general population, invoked marshall law, and put us all under virtual house arrest? At eight o’clock on Thursday we clap for the NHS; what say at eight o’clock on Friday we Boo! for Boris!
   
   
3.  Positive Thinking. The UK is never going to win the football European Championships, but when it comes to the league table for covid deaths, we’re in the No. 1 slot. Take that Europe! Champions! Champions! You’re not singing anymore…
4. Sneer at covid’s potency. Cancer will take the lives of 160,000 Britons this year, and every year. Coronavirus will probably only manage 50,000 at the most, this one year. Is that the best you can do Covid? Pathetic! If I succumb to the virus and don’t make it through, I want everyone to say ‘He died of the small c‘.
5.  Sneeze your way back to health. If you’re unlucky enough to get the virus, remember that every time you sneeze you’re ejecting millions of the little buggers out through your nose. So sneeze as much as you can, and every time you sneeze, taunt the exiting virus with the words ‘Take to the tissue and die in my dustbin, coronavirus scum!‘
   (Although, maybe just make sure you’ don’t sneeze on anyone else!)
6. See things from the virus’s point of view. Coronavirus doesn’t mean to hurt you. It loves humans. It just wants to snuggle up and get warm and cosy with us. It isn’t vindictive or cruel – it’s killing us with kindness.
7. Use anthropomorphism. Take the sting out of the virus with some timely anthropomorphism – morph the the sinister looking viral sphere into a friendly, smiling cartoon character.
   
8. Turn a problem into an opportunity. For once in your life you can wear a surgical mask and gloves without fear of being arrested for impersonating a doctor.
9. Use the virus for your own purposes. Like ridiculing the irritating politicians that got us into this mess.
   

   Michael Govid

10. Use the Covid hysteria to cover your mistakes and omissions. Everyone will be so distracted by fear of the virus, they won’t even notice that your ’10 Great Ways to Beat the Coronavirus’ article only has 9 ways!

[1.] Where do I start? The government failed to act on the warnings they were given that the virus was coming, and failed to act on the advice to stockpile PPE to make ready. They failed to track and isolate infected people coming into the country, or to identify who they had been in contact with. They have consistently said that the only symptoms were a cough and a temperature (whereas in fact there are many other symptoms)  causing many cases to go un-noticed (and the virus to be spread extensively).
On the same day Boris received a report saying that hand-shaking spreads the virus, he went to a covid ward, shook as many hands as he could, and then went on TV to tell everyone he’d done it. And he contracted the virus and nearly died – had he done so, he would have been a worthy nomination for the Darwin prize.
Having set up the huge ‘Nightingale hospitals’, instead of using them to isolate the infected, they decided to ‘keep them for later, in case it gets really bad’. Covid patients were sent to general hospitals around the country, where they went on to spread the virus to NHS workers and on into the general population. Nice one Boris!

text & images © Graham Wright 2020