Saturday 4 August 2007

Oh No, Please Not Again

Emergency post. This is serious. No room for humour on this one. I have just caught wind of a new Foot and Mouth outbreak. I fervently hope it doesn't turn out like the last one. I was very much affected by it. I am currently crying and am finding it hard to see the screen and the keyboard, that is how much it means to me. At the time of the last outbreak I was doing the rural run every working day and so was very much caught up in it. Some owners of farms and small holdings simply banned me from their premises altogether. I didn't take it personally but it did make me feel a bit uncomfortable. Others insisted I drove over or walked over disinfected mats. The worst bit about it was that despite all these precautions I could potentially still have spread the disease, given the nature of my job. The worst case scenario would have been the llamas. Being ruminants they were at risk and even if they had been destroyed, due to no involvement of mine, I would still have been almost as devastated as their owners. Needless to say, I, along with everyone else was banned from entering the premises. They would have been almost impossible to replace. Thankfully the disease did not reach us but seeing the fear of people, some I have known for years, is something I never wish to experience again. Both for them, and myself, I hope the new political regime we have gets off it's butt and acts now. Last time they just sat back and hoped the problem would go away. And what happened? The countryside virtually shut down, tourism died a death, not to mention thousands of animals who might have been spared a similar fate, and the tax payers had to pick up a tab of in excess of £8 Billion. We have finally fully withdrawn from Northern Ireland after the longest campaign in British military history. So we have some spare troops. Unlike last time, when it was left far too late to get them involved, get these guys in there now.

4 comments:

Deacon Barry said...

They do seem to have acted quickly this time. The exclusion zone is already in place, and all movement of livestock has been stopped

Marteen said...

Yes,it seems that things have moved faster than last time. Thankfully. We need to get these political people off their arses when it is needed. It's not like we are asking these simpletons to do anything difficult. Just their job.

Anonymous said...

Holy crap, I thought you meant "Foot in Mouth" figuratively...

Good that they're moving quickly.

Unlike our government, yours seems to occasionally learn from past mistakes. Of course, you've got a lot more past to learn from.

Kisses and well wishes.

Marteen said...

Yes we do have a lot more history than you have in "Newbieland" (also refered to as the "New World") but I am not sure it does us any good. When I was a kid we had a foot and mouth epidemic and I was not really aware of it but it seems the government involved in the last one did not learn from the lessons learnt or they would not have made such a mess of the situation. It seems that genes can learn from history and evolve, but humans as sentient beings seem unable to do so. What is going on there then? Does Mr Dawkins have an answer to this one?