The Story of Rona the Roaming Coronavirus
The little virus who loved to make friends.
Once upon a time, there was a little coronavirus named Rona. Rona loved to make friends with people and play with them. She could make friends with one person and just a few days later be playing with two or three or four people they met together.
Rona’s Uncle Donald told everyone it was ok to play with Rona because she was just like her cousin Mister Flu. He came every year to visit people and no one minded.
Rona romped and played. She could travel very fast and play in lots of fun places. Rona could jump through the air. She could even fly on airplanes.
One place she loved was called New York. It had fun subways to ride and crowded streets where she could play tag. And it had great places to eat and meet people. Sometimes she would even stay up past her bed time. Then she would sneak into clubs to play tag. “You’re It!,” she’d giggle.
Rona also loved to visit many other places. They had a big party in New Orleans called Mardi Gras. Rona had so much fun! She loved Detroit. She also went to Spring Break in Florida. She made lots of new friends on the beach.
“What a great traveler,” said her grandfather, Mister Bat.
Then some grownups did mean things. Mister. Inslee, Mister Newsom, and Mister Cuomo said she had to stay in her room and not play. So did Ms. Whitmer. What meanies!
And the worst was Doctor Fauci. He said one day he was going to give her a big shot. Ouchies! That could really hurt.
Even Uncle Donald said it might be scary to play with Rona. Rona was very sad. She cried and cried.
But then Uncle Donald was nice again. He said Rona could come out and play again soon. He smiled.
Other people were nice too. Mr. DeSantis said she could go to church to meet people. He said she could even go play on the beach again. Mr. Abbot was also nice. His friends wore cowboy hats and had big shiny guns. He said she could start going to stores again real soon.
Rona was happy. She knew Uncle Donald only pretended to be mad at her. It was a game. But now he was her friend. He sent magic messages on his phone. “LIBERATE RONA!”, he told everyone. Some people said messages were viral. But they were only play viruses, not real viruses like Rona.
Uncle Donald said the mean people like Ms. Whitmer had to stop their bad ways and be nicer to Rona. Rona wanted to hug Uncle Donald but he said she could only hug other people.
Uncle Donald could always make Rona smile. She wished he would stop talking to that mean Dr. Fauci. Then she could go out and play with people all the time!
Maybe she could come to your house and play, if you let her come in.
See Rona run and play. See Rona make new friends! Run, Rona, run!
THE END.
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8 Replies to “The Story of Rona the Roaming Coronavirus”
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About Dan
Dan Farber has written and taught on environmental and constitutional law as well as about contracts, jurisprudence and legislation. Currently at Berkeley Law, he has al…
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I feel like the Mister Bat character, clearly an anti-Chinese trope at this point, was a bit insensitive given the racial stigmatization Asian and Asian-Americans people — some of whom are your students, are facing in light of COVID-19. Something to consider during your next attempt at satirizing a pandemic.
Fine, blame it on the bat. What the heck, we’re an easy target.
Bartok the bat, Anastasia
I’m very sorry that the object of the satire was unclear. The object was supposed to be the bungled White House response, which of course includes efforts to spur xenophobia. Discriminating against Asians and Asian Americans, which the White House was clearly encouraging, is worse than despicable. Contributing to that attitude was the furthest thing from my mind.
Professor Farber is friendly with Chinese according to his past comments, so I don’t think that he means to encourage racial stigmatization. Although the Mister Bat seems a little unnecessary.
Let’s put the xenophobia tropes to bed, certainly for this site.
Extremely legitimate, sound science on multiple strains of corona viruses have been done by an esteemed researcher at the University in Wuhan for decades. Her work has long been vetted by our best researchers here at CDC and currently is the basis of the RNA research on a vaccine by multiple bio-techs.
She immediately released the genetic sequence of COVID-19 (and dozens of others previously), long before it arrived on our shore and without interference from Peoples Party hacks. Would you want to descend hundreds/thousands of meters into some dank cave to collect bat droppings so you can research virus transmission between species? Her work at her now truly advanced age is without reproach. COVID-19 originated in a specific bat specie from a cave in Wuhan-stop!
SARS, MERES and an entire host of viruses have emerged from a variety of regions around the planet in the last decade, not just China. Need more persuasion? The great Spanish Flu of 1918 originated in Kansas, not Spain, tropes.
Professor Farber has taken this entire host of fact and distilled it into “Mr. Bat” quite quite creatively. Those choosing to denigrate his caricature as xenophobic are trolling PC trash.
Wow! Very creative. I wonder if Uncle Donald has the capacity to understand this story?
Thanks, Jackie!
I wonder about that too.
Does anyone here remember, early in, WHO saying coronavirus can’t be spread person to person, as well as Dr. Fauci saying this is not a major threat, Nancy Pelosi inviting people to China Town, Cuomo letting 3 hospitals go bankrupt in Queens, resulting in Elmhurst having to deal with the huge surge (this happened at the time of 2009 swine flu pandemic). Uncle D isn’t alone.