TEENAGERS have apparently ‘bounced back’ from Covid with better exam results. But is it perhaps time for them – and plenty of older people – to get over a pandemic that ended in early 2021?
‘I completely forgot how to interact with people’
Well, spending 20 years in total social isolation would affect anyone’s personality. What? Covid wasn’t like that? You actually had to observe on-off lockdowns for two years, with regular contact with your family, access to a phone and frequent Zoom calls? Sorry, it’s easy to confuse your account of Covid with a North Korean prison.
‘Covid made me get a D in psychology’
Yes, and your other GCSEs aren’t great either, thanks to 2020. But being out of a structured learning environment is obviously bad for teenagers. It’s just a shame that in four and a half years you’ve been unable to relearn writing things down and memorising stuff. Let’s hope you don’t get diarrhoea any time soon. You’ll still be on the bog in 2030.
‘Being out of the workplace for so long makes it impossible to get a job’
True. Once you’re not in a workplace with other people, the concept of work becomes unfathomable forever. If only jobs involved turning up at a certain time and doing tasks you’re capable of, instead of being a baffling process of psychic osmosis that relies on being part of the hive mind of your co-workers. Who knew working in an office was literally being one of the Borg?
‘My children have no table manners due to Covid’
Well, the pandemic undoubtedly was difficult for many children. Where were your little ones again? At home. With you. In two years you probably could have taught them every aspect of etiquette down to knowing to pass the decanter clockwise during port service.
‘Lockdown made me totally socially dysfunctional’
Before Covid you must have been a regular Oscar or Oscarina Wilde, wowing everyone you met with your wit and perceptive comments, and in demand at every party in town. Oh wait. Pre-2020 you weren’t that popular, and if you’re brutally honest it might be because your idea of a fascinating conversation is talking about yourself or things like your ISAs? Maybe we need to be less quick to judge SARS-CoV-2.
‘I can’t concentrate because of the pandemic’
We all remember how the coronavirus came round to your house and forced you to scroll Twitter and watch TikTok videos all day. Now it’s all you know, and the fact that you never tackle anything more demanding than a 14-second Sabrina Carpenter video is definitely nothing to do with it requiring literally no effort. And to think that before lockdown you’d start each day with a classic chess problem and a few chapters of The Brothers Karamazov.
‘I’ve forgotten how to talk to women’
It’s unheard of for people to be reluctantly single, so Covid must be to blame. But first check you did actually know how to talk to women before the pandemic, eg. not saying on a date, ‘I’m furious about the Adepta Sororitas being female and breaking Warhammer canon.’ Think positively and find a woman who’s also still milking Covid for all it’s worth. Going to Asda without a face mask will be the date of lifetime.