All of a sudden – as if I’d said Beetlejuice three times – the national conspiracy community descended like flying monkeys.

Amid the various taunts, one piped up with “Genocidal Ali, got quite a ring to it”.

I shook my head in furious disagreement. “Genocidal Ali”? Has a “ring to it”? Are you serious? No! It doesn’t! Genocidal Gina has a ring to it. Genocidal Gerry has a ring to it. Where’s the alliteration in “Genocidal Ali”??

New rule: If you’re going to accuse someone of mass murder, at least have the decency to give them a name that works!

[If you have a suggestion for my murderous dictator name, drop it in the comments below. The winning entry will become the title of my future memoir.]

But putting that aside for a moment, here’s the thing: People react differently to extreme stress. We may get upset, angry, indignant. We may interrogate the decisions being made. We may have strong opinions about whether those decisions go too far or not far enough.

But for the most part, most of us are still anchored to reality.

Reality might be sh*t, but we look it square in the eye, grit our teeth and acknowledge that the only way out is through.

For others, however, when reality becomes too much to bear, they react very differently. They deny and dissociate. They bully and taunt anyone who accepts the evidence that they can’t bear.

They look for simple answers from whichever sketchy source is prepared to give them. They create an alternate reality. The “reality” of conspiracy. The alternate reality that covid is a hoax, that the vaccine contains microchips, that politicians are being injected with saline solution, that all of Western democracy is an inside job.

People who believe the covid conspiracies aren’t bad people, they are misguided and misinformed. Their emotional vulnerability is being exploited by people who don’t have their interests at heart.

Reality right now hurts. But we are not the first generation to face a tough reality and we won’t be the last.

The key to overcoming a tough reality like covid is looking it in the eye and staring it down. You don’t beat it by looking away.

Don’t fall for bad evidence. Be careful about your sources. And if covid still doesn’t seem real, check out the footage from India’s “apocalyptic” delta outbreak.

Covid is real.

Young people are dying in Sydney.

Think of those you love the most and get with the program.

We’re not invincible, and our kids need us.