2455: Virus Consulting

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Revision as of 02:27, 27 April 2021 by 162.158.158.113 (talk) (Explanation: Too complicated. Made differently complicated.)
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Virus Consulting
All our teams make an effort to stay optimistic, but I will say that once our virus division saw the vaccine efficacy data, they started asking for payment up front.
Title text: All our teams make an effort to stay optimistic, but I will say that once our virus division saw the vaccine efficacy data, they started asking for payment up front.

Explanation

Ambox notice.png This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: Created by a COVID virus. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.
If you can address this issue, please edit the page! Thanks.

This comic imagines a scenario where Ponytail and Black Hat work for a consulting firm, which offers advice about viruses, specifically COVID-19. Ponytail tells a panel of people (the government?) that though they are worried about COVID-19 variants, the fact that the number of people vaccinated is exponentially increasing is a good sign. One of the people she is speaking to accuses Ponytail of simply "telling them what they want to hear".

The punchline comes when the panel discovers that another client for the firm is the viruses themselves. Black Hat presents the same graph to the viruses and gives them the opposite message: though COVID-19 variants seem to be exciting to them, vaccination numbers are terrible news to their propagation and survival. This repeats the tone of #2287: from the virus' perspective, they are in a lot of trouble, which is another way of saying that humanity stands a good chance of surviving this situation.

SARS-CoV-2 variants, commonly called "COVID variants", have been in the news. The SARS-CoV-2 virus has mutated into many different strains, some of which spread more easily among humans. It is unknown whether the different variants have a greater individual fatality rate. The current SARS-CoV-2 vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna as well as the Regeneron therapeutic monoclonal antibodies all effectively protect against at least the New York, South African, and U.K. variants according to two recent study preprints released April 22, 2021. Further research and peer review is ongoing.

The title text notes that the firm's "virus division" (the group advising the viruses themselves) has started to get worried that their jobs are becoming obsolete, due to vaccine efficacy. Thus, they are demanding to be paid "up front", or before consulting/advising services have been rendered to their clients. Dependant upon the expectations of each party, payment can be asked for "up front", defered for invoicing once services have been rendered or a combination of the two. The weaker party to a contract may often need to submit their transaction, or a guarantor, before the other spends too much effort in fulfilling their element.

Transcript

Ambox notice.png This transcript is incomplete. Please help editing it! Thanks.
[Ponytail stands in front a chart, labeled "Vaccinations", with an upward-curving line, and several box-and-whisker plots below. She is holding a pointer and speaking to a panel composed of Hairbun, Cueball and Megan.]
Ponytail: Now, I know you're worried about the variants, but this graph should be encouraging.
Ponytail: Your rollout is going well. The vaccines are good. They work.
[The comics pans to the left to show just the panel and Ponytail. Ponytail has the pointer to her side.]
Hairbun: You're just telling us what we want to hear.
Ponytail: If you think that, you should see the reports from my colleagues who work for COVID.
[Close-up of Ponytail.]
Off-screen voice: They work for who??
Ponytail: Our firm has lots of clients.
[Black Hat stands in front of the same graph as panel one, and points to it with a pointer. He is speaking to a panel of three large coronaviruses.]
Caption: Meanwhile...
Black Hat: Now, I know you're excited about the variants, but this graph should be terrifying.
Black Hat: We're in real trouble here.


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Discussion

In a way telling the virus the 'bad' news actually should get them to work on more variants, so in a way Black Hat is encouraging COVID to mutate faster :S141.101.104.5 14:52, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

Which would be typically Classhole Black Hat ;-) --Kynde (talk) 15:04, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

Anyway we don't get an answer to the question in the third pane. "They work for W.H.O.?". Hopefully this will be answered in a later comic. Inquiring minds want to know. --141.101.69.211 11:32, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

Huh? the answer is that they work for "COVID". the who question is more of a statement of surprise that COVID is a client (and isn't related to the WHO orgaization). 172.69.34.52 19:29, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
That "WHO" might be an extra layer of jokes...--141.101.105.228 00:21, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
W.H.O.'s on first. Barmar (talk) 01:19, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

Shouldn't that be: "They work for whom?" 162.158.94.104 09:53, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

"WHOM" as in "World Health Organization - Maybe" ? --141.101.104.149 22:53, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

Sigh. Here we are in 2023, and it seems like it's worked out best for everybody! That is, an everybody consisting of "people who don't get long covid" and "covid". Thankfully, it's not like people's bodies deteriorate, so I'm sure it's just gonna keep being elderly people and already-disabled people who can never go outside again. Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay.