7 Lessons from the Coronavirus Crisis

The pandemic pestilence of the Coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2 or COVID-19) has swept our world with indiscriminate and unprecedented speed, fury, and randomness—coupled with insidious under-the-radar stealth, invasiveness, and lethality. The devastation precipitated by the spiked, invisible, and aggressive Coronavirus microbe (‘corona’ means ‘crown’ in Latin) that is just close to a mere millionth of a millimeter in size is the latest catastrophe visited upon mankind. Nothing like this in scale, intensity, and velocity of transmission has happened to the world since the Black Death (1346-1353) destroyed extensive populations in Europe, Africa, and Asia, and the Spanish Flu (1918-1920) decimated large swathes of humanity in Europe, the two Americas, Africa, and Asia. A century after this, the carnage from the Coronavirus has extended even farther, and continues to climb exponentially across all countries and continents worldwide.

In the wake of this gigantic and fearful tragedy that is being frantically addressed worldwide through preventive, recuperative, and rehabilitative measures, we can reflectively draw seven important life lessons:

1. We are ultimately one race. The Coronavirus is clearly a rapacious, dispassionate, and implacable adversary. It is ready to pounce upon the wary and the unwary without discrimination of race, color, ethnicity, culture, language, gender, age, or pedigree. It scoffs at ethnocentrism, xenophobia, and pride of superiority, and ignores perceptions of inferiority. (The unusually high death rates of minority races in the US may have socioeconomic, dietary, or genetic causality). Indeed, the entire human race is at risk against this ubiquitous microbe. Erudite and egalitarian philosophers, philanthropists, and politicians have widely disseminated this aphorism through the centuries: respect the equality of mankind. Abraham Lincoln declared in 1863 at Gettysburg: “All men are created equal.” The Coronavirus corroborates this fact!

2. We are temporary inhabitants of a borderless world. From birth to death, our lives are sustained by unevenly distributed global resources we inherit by default from the crust of the earth. Man has divided the world into nearly 200 countries with visible as well as invisible borders. The regal Coronavirus pathogen has scant respect for such delineations in a relentlessly swirling globe. In its terrestrial sweep, the implacable airborne microbe has risen above the mundane and has invaded hapless civilizations everywhere at will. Millions of combatants have killed each other through countless decades to protect their manmade and natural borders; but the macabre contagion burgeoning across a cartographic, yet increasingly transnational world respects no boundaries.

3. We need to respect nature's boundaries. The outbreak of the Coronavirus can perhaps be ironically traced back to our disrespect for the ecological boundaries of other forms of life on earth. We have encroached with impunity into the marginal spaces of our fellow-species. Indeed, we have invaded the natural habitats of wildlife through centuries of human greed and hegemony by deforestation, commercialization, and thoughtless sport. As a consequence, thousands of species of animals, birds, and aquatic creatures have become extinct. In fact, 60% of diverse species have perished since 1970, over the past half-century alone! Climate change, ecological imbalances, depletion of natural resources, and zoonotic diseases have become irreversible realities. By unwittingly aiding in unleashing the deadly Coronavirus, we might have launched a vengeful, unforgiving Frankenstein!

4. Human life is vulnerable and fragile. Despite our boasting the conquest of much of the earth (and a tiny bit of outer?space, including the recent landing on Mars) and our reckless exploitation of natural resources, it is humiliating to be crippled by a miniscule enemy we cannot even see! Alas, we are woefully lacking in the natural defense and bodily protection that even the placid pangolin is endowed with: arguably, this hard-shelled anteater and the soft, velvety bat in concert are presumed to have transmitted the Coronavirus to humans through meat stalls in the Wuhan province of China in late 2019. (There is also speculation that the voracious virus was spread from a Wuhan lab). The Coronavirus death toll in the US (accelerated by the highly transmissible Delta and Omicron variants and vaccination hesitancy among at least 20% of the conservative US population) is over 1 million (1,000,000)—overwhelmingly eclipsing past flu season deaths combined, and exceeding twice the total of 90,936 US military deaths: the Iraq War (2003-10: 4,487); Afghan War (2001-19: 2,441); Vietnam War (1955-75: 47,434); and, Korean War (1950-53: 36,574). The deadly microbe reminds us of how fragile our lives are; and, entering old age is a gift for humanity that cannot be taken for granted!

5. Catastrophes test our individual and collective character. Doctors, nurses, paramedics, and other health workers at the frontlines of the pandemic warfare have been leading the charge to help the victims of the virus in the US and all over the world. These doughty and selfless warriors fight relentlessly to save human lives afflicted by the Coronavirus genome—and thousands of these stalwarts have themselves bravely succumbed to the virulent onslaught. Increasingly, people from all walks of life, including postal and supply chain workers, volunteers, and socially responsible businesses have joined the fray to sacrificially serve communities. On the obverse, many self-seeking leaders, slick politicians, marauding scamsters, and avaricious entities are callously exploiting the scenario for their advantage, uncaring of precious human lives. Thus, the implacable viral genie will expose both the basest and the noblest elements of human character.

6. Man is a social being. The English poet John Donne wrote in 1624 that, “no man is an island”. Even Mauro Morandi, the octogenarian Italian who had lived alone on Budelli Island for 28 years, recently allowed visitors after years of isolation (he has now left the island to live on the mainland of Italy!). The pandemic has been invading the world in repeated waves of variants and aggressively transmissible mutations without respite. The high death rates in Brazil, India, Mexico, Turkey, Russia, and the African nations poignantly and paradoxically reflect endemic socialization in these historically family-oriented cultures and generally poorer communities. Such gregarious societies suffer more by closing ranks to support their survivors. However, where individualistic cultures prevail—presumably in socially formal Western nations—social distancing may be plausible and bearable, as arms-length relationships are generally accepted in every-day life.?Yet, Boris Johnson, PM of the UK, conceded from the throes of his own deathly struggle with the Coronavirus: "There really is such a thing as society." The pestilence is eerily teaching us to deepen and treasure in humility, our familial and earthly relationships while life endures!

7. Mankind is resilient. The seaborne Black Death (1346-1353) changed the socioeconomic fabric of the populace, ending feudalism; the Industrial Revolution from 1760 to the early 1800s, and the French Revolution (1789-1799) heralded social, technological, ideological, political, and economic upheavals;?and, the waves of Cholera pandemics since 1817 and the Spanish Flu (1918-20) introduced healthcare, sanitation, urban parks, and epidemic control. The crippling Coronavirus has caused international economies and societies trauma, chaos, and losses. Yet, restructuring is under way of our economic, political, and social ecosystems. We are ushering in an era of remote work, study, and play toward an innovative, digitally-linked, and spartan world. A million remote workers are being hired every month in the USA alone. Travel-related atmospheric pollution has dwindled, and fossil fuels are being substituted by clean energy (30% of cars in Europe will be electric by 2027).

These seven life lessons should provide us food for thought and action in the wake of the ominous and agonizing Coronavirus pandemic. They may impel us to wisely harness the somber fallouts from the catastrophe. The periodic opening of the deadly Pandora's Box of variants of the diabolic Coronavirus continues to trigger global vulnerability to put humanity on notice!

In summary, we are a vulnerable yet resilient human race, genetically predisposed to social interaction; we have been nurtured and generationally seasoned to be individually and collectively competitive—more so in a reticulate, technology-driven information era—with or without social distancing. We must genuinely respect each other as truly equal human beings and unique, valuable individuals. Furthermore, we must also respect and conserve other species that share this depleting planet with us.?Above all, we must ponder anew with awe our view of—and our personal relationship with—God the Almighty Creator. His Immortality is as real and awesome as the vulnerability of our mortality in an awful, pandemic-prone world!