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Death is touching every household, but still the dissenters declare: “It’s a hoax!”

Even as we bury our dead, they reiterate: “It is all overblown; much ado about nothing.”

Until it touches them — and guilt haunts them — they will continue in kind.

They have thoroughly imbibed every scrap of misinformation, received and forwarded without pause, and have become utterly convinced by it.

So it was for our family back home too. Disbelief, until a cousin, walking the earth and smiling merrily just last week, slipped into a coma and died alone, and was buried alone, as all his family fought with their own ravaging fever, fearful of their own end.

Close friends then ring… they too have lost loved ones suddenly. A seemingly fit and healthy uncle. A sister-in-law. Their father. A young niece. A brother.

But yet again the dissenters yell: “Hoax!”