About boiling frogs and a streetcar named Corona
With a size of barely 120 nanometer, an envelope with RNA material inside and some spiked glycoproteins on the outside to make it look more fashionable, our notorious family member of the Coronaviridae has put the world to its knees in less than two months. We might want to review the invincibility of the human race. The commander of the planet dropped everything and rushed into a panicking surge on toilet paper.
Outside a host, a virus is not even considered as ‘life’. Dead matter lurking in the dark.
Waiting patiently to rise to the occasion… and cause a devastating impact on our society. About ten years ago, I co-facilitated a project called ASAP. The initiative was set up by the Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF) and during a four year exercise, an international and multi-stakeholder team developed scenarios regarding the economical and societal impact of pandemics. The assignment was issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan directly after the H1N1 flu crisis in 2008, which turned out to be very modest, but warned us – again – about the potential of infectious agents becoming global threats. Did HIV, SARS, MERS, Ebola, Zika, Noro altered our mindset when dealing with potential pandemics? Partly, I guess. While quoting the British band Jamiroquai “When you gonna learn”, at least I notice some serious lessons learned between 2008 and now. Especially in China and the EU, governments did not hesitate to install drastic measures in order to contain the outbreak. But for Europe, measures were taken stepwise and not coordinated at EC level. In the time between, we lost the cohort opportunity for real containment. The virus was out in the open as some people – national politicians, citizens, youngsters, even scientists – didn’t take it seriously (enough). Pandemics, isn’t that a third world problem? Lack of hygiene, healthcare or something? Too slow, too little, too late. In only a few weeks, the tiny envelope traveled around the world spreading bad news. Why world leaders hesitated too long, can have many answers. One of the most important hurdles was the fear of economic slowdown or recession. Well, we’re flat on our bellies anyway and it remains an open question how long it will take to come back to the level of 2019. Back in business before Easter, we hear from the Oval Office. Sure, no doubt about that.
As long as economic growth is considered our main driver of success, we live as frogs feeling quite comfortable in our warming bath of affluence.
I’m not the first raising this question: Is it really necessary to continue to put economic growth as ‘the’ factor of human self-realization? Can we put Corona’s marketing team at work to tackle an even more global problem? Which until now, did not really concerned us too much because it hasn’t the same sense of urgency than hospitalized patients and coffins piled up in an ice skating hall. Let’s have another round of NIMBY, my treat (or was it threat, damn spelling corrector). Major changes never go smoothly, they come in landslides causing serious damage. So… maybe, we have come to a moment in time, reaching a unique opportunity to reshuffle our priorities before the next RNA-combination takes Wall Street for a spin, again. Let us hope for a humanity creating worldwide resilience not only when clear and present danger hits us in the face and politicians have to take decisions for us. Too slow, too little, too late.
As an end note: In 2018, the WHO reported a top 10 list of deathly diseases worldwide. In low-income countries, 5 out of 10 are still ‘communicable’ (read: infectious), including tuberculosis, malaria and HIV. No economic impact whatsoever, so why would we care? Come on, Jay Kay, sing it! When you ...