Coronavirus has become an obsession, a dangerous obsession.
Every day there's a new drama creating worry, fear and suspense.
It has dominated our thoughts and our lives for months, and, just as we were were starting to relax and breathe more easily, we are being suffocated by a blanket of disasters and new fears.
Every waking minute we are besieged by news and views of a pandemic that will be forgotten in a few years time.
It will be like a bad dream.
There have been far worse pandemics over the past one hundred years.
'Spanish flu' in 1918 killed up to 50 million people, 25 million in the first twenty five weeks.
One of those was my father's twin brother Bert who survived the trench warfare in France only to die a month after it ended.
In two years from 1956 Asian flu killed two million people and another flu pandemic in 1968 cost two million lives.
The HIV/Aids epidemic over seven years from 2005 claimed 36 million lives.
The death toll from coronavirus is approaching one million.
All appalling figures but why are we so fearful, so transfixed now?
The revolution in communications is mainly to blame.
It is with us every waking minute, spewed out by the voracious media - press, television and radio - made infinitely worse by the ever increasing and inadequately controlled internet news platforms with their fake news and information.
This is itself a virus, spreading relentlessly around the world, feeding our dangerous obsession.
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