The Dorset Broadcasting Authority [aka The Tribune of the People] is in serious hot water today after revealing that its re-re-re-revised figures for the number of people likely to lose at least three limbs from the recent Coronabyn virus outbreak had been reduced from 25,000 to 3. The Corporation had initially told the public that at least 500,000 people would be faced with "significant limb-loss" unless every single member of the community self-isolates without food for at least 14 months. Variously accused of "blindly following the science" and "not following the science" [depending on what science they were supposed to be following or not following] the hapless Corporation's news division [currently self-inventing at home] has seemed increasingly out on a limb by sticking to its insistence that loss of appendages was a near 100% certain outcome of infection.
According to every medical expert we have contacted, the Coronabyn virus is a respiratory disease which starves the brain of oxygen to an extent that people begin to believe that the DHRS would be better led by an old man with a beard and a comrades cap than by the estimable Mrs Doris Endersley Kindersley. Symptoms are otherwise mild though confusion, disillusion, collusion and delusion are occasionally associated side-effects. "We thought the general election together with a mild winter of discontent might be enough to see the virus off", a spokesperson for the Establishment Party said today, "but its a pesky little bug and seems to be lingering. It is for these reasons that we have been forced to invent a crisis and implement measures designed to keep everyone at home for the foreseeable future without food or any promise of the restoration of civil liberties. Only when we feel they have learned their lesson will we decide it's safe for them to come out again. Until then they will just have to do as they are told". Asked if perhaps the measures were disproportionate, the same spokesman [Draco Nian] said they were not. "People just don't realise that people could lose limbs because of this virus. We are very serious: anyone leaving their home without permission is likely to get their legs chopped off. We have already seen in less serious cases one or two people lose fingers - but at least one was accidental and the others just weren't listening to reason and had to be persuaded that Mr Street was not the answer to the county's ills. Happily, in the majority of cases, the threat of pressure on a second digit worked immediately and they were released back into self-improvement well-bandaged up". "In our view, that's medical intervention at its very best".
In a statement this morning DBC Chief Executive Mr Royston Binstock confirmed that the Corporation was co-operating with RDC Chief Constable Sir Rising Crimewave in the battle to keep people in lock-down: "We are issuing as many dire warnings as we can and maximising the nature of the threat in order to keep people safely under lock and key. Sir Rising himself said, "Only by taking these unprecedentedly illiberal and unconstitutional measures can we reduce crime, prevent the sale of illegal substances and stop people going out and about and assembling peacefully on the streets. It makes for a more ordered and safer society which people will come to see as a happy outcome of this terrible crisis". "Who needs to worry about civil liberties etc when you are tucked up at home? At least now we know where everyone is", he added. "For years it's been our ambition to have everyone locked-up. [Surely Locked-down [Ed]]. Who would have thought a tiny little pest would enable us to do so - and without the slightest protest?"
THOSE PREDICTIONS IN FULL:
Number of people likely to lose limbs as a result of infection by CONTRIK-69
PREDICTION 10th March: 550,000
17th March: 2,500
24th March: 200
27th March: 18
30th March: 3*
*Based on observed alterations in behaviour following "exemplary demonstrations of the determination of the authorities to fight this disease". [Threadbone Research Institute CONTRI-69 Division]
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