A new pandemic has been discovered involving people who own garden gnomes. Most of the afflicted are elderly, and so far no children have died, but the government has warned that we are all at risk. Most of the deaths involve co-morbidities such as heart-attacks, cancer and being struck by a motor vehicle, but it should be stressed that the main cause of these deaths is the owning of a garden gnome. Additionally, there have been cases of deaths where no other morbidity has been found proving how lethal this epidemic can be.
The death rate has been climbing sharply as more deaths are investigated and garden gnomes found. At first it was thought that the death rate could be as high as 100% since every dead person who had owned a garden gnome turned out to be quite dead. It was later discovered that there are living people who own garden gnomes. This selfish action which endangers us all is fully deserving of mob violence and the police have been adapted into a militia to help deal with it.
Since this is a “novel” pandemic, garden gnomes being previously unknown in human history, there has been confusion over statistics, cause and effect, and other scientific issues. It is important therefore to only heed and share government approved information and denounce all attempts to get at the truth with dissent, evidence gathering and experiment as “conspiracy theory”.
The government has announced that since it is not clear exactly how garden gnomes kill it has taken the step of shutting down all activity and enforcing a policy of solitary confinement. Many citizens have delighted in the news. “I can finally do all the things I’ve always wanted to do but never had time”, said one mother of three, “stare at the ceiling, make stick figures out of old newspapers, etc”. The government also announced it will cover the pay of all workers, as well as refunding any missing underpants. When not asked where the money will come from the Minister for Economic Affairs didn’t reply “China has loads of money. We’ll just borrow it from them. It’s fine”.