The Post-Pandemic Crisis

Introduction. Communicable diseases have existed during the entire history of humankind’s?existence. ?Malaria, tuberculosis, influenza,?smallpox?and others became widespread, as the more “civilized” humans created cities and trade routes to connect with other cities, and waged wars, the more likely pandemics arrived.

165 A.D.: Antonin Plague: The plague was likely an early appearance of smallpox that began with the Huns. They then infected the Germans, who passed it to the Romans and returning troops spread it throughout the?Roman Empire. This plague continued until about 180 A.D., claiming Emperor?Marcus Aurelius?as one of its victims. (We have one of his good books).

250 A.D.: Cyprian Plague: Named after the first known victim, the Christian bishop of Carthage. City dwellers fled to the country to escape infection but instead spread the disease further.

541 A.D.: Justinian Plague: First appearing in Egypt, and spread through?Palestine?and the?Byzantine Empire, and then throughout the Mediterranean. The plague changed the course of history by stopping Emperor Justinian's plans to bring the Roman Empire back, causing massive economic struggles. It is attributed with creating an apocalyptic atmosphere, which abetted the more rapid spread of Christianity. Recurrences over the next two centuries eventually killed about 50 million people, 26 percent of the world population.

1350: The Black Death: Responsible for the death of one-third of the world population, this second large outbreak of the bubonic plague started in Asia and moved west in caravans. Entering through Sicily in 1347 A.D. when plague sufferers arrived in the port of Messina, it spread throughout Europe rapidly. ?The British feudal system collapsed when the plague changed economic circumstances and demographics.

1492: Spanish Plague: Europeans passed along diseases such as smallpox, measles and bubonic plague to the native populations. With no previous exposure, these diseases devastated indigenous people, with as many as 90 percent dying throughout the north and south continents. In 1520, the?Aztec Empire?was destroyed by a smallpox infection. It weakened the population such that they were unable to resist Spanish and left farmers unable to produce crops.

1665: Great Plague of London: The bubonic plague led to the deaths of 20 percent of London’s population. The worst of the outbreak tapered off in the fall of 1666, around the same time as another destructive event—the?Great Fire of London happened.

1817: Cholera Pandemic: The first of seven?cholera?pandemics happened over the next 150 years. This wave of the small intestine infection originated in Russia, where one million people died. The British Empire’s navy spread cholera to Spain, Africa, Indonesia, China, Japan, Italy, Germany and America. It killed 150,000 people.

1855: Third Plague Pandemic: Starting in China and moving to India and Hong Kong. This bubonic plague claimed 15 million victims. Initially spread by fleas during a mining boom in Yunnan, the plague was a factor in Taiping and other rebellions. India faced the most substantial casualties, and the epidemic was an excuse for repressive policies that sparked revolt against the British.

1889: Russian Flu: The first significant flu pandemic started in Siberia and Kazakhstan, traveled to Moscow, and made its way into Finland and then Poland, where it moved into the rest of Europe. By the following year, it had crossed the ocean into North America and Africa. By the end of 1890, 360,000 had died.

Spanish Flu (1918): The avian-borne flu resulted in 50 million deaths worldwide.?It was first observed in Europe, the United States and parts of Asia before swiftly spreading around the world. At the time, there were no vaccines to treat this killer flu strain.?Wire service reports of a flu outbreak in Madrid in 1918 led to the pandemic being labeled the “Spanish flu.” By October, hundreds of thousands of Americans died. The flu threat disappeared in the summer of 1919 when the infected developed immunities or died.

The 2019 Covid-19 Crisis: ?During nearly three years, everyone worldwide had to endure the impact of the Covid-19 virus on many fronts.—it was the most serious pandemic since the Spanish Flu in 1918. It affected healthcare, religion, finance, education, society, families, and politics, as summarized:

Healthcare. Many patients delayed essential healthcare (operations, doctor visits, and preventive care) because they were avoiding contact with others in crowded places where virus exposure was highest, such as healthcare facilities. This was especially true for the elderly with serious morbidities. We were all isolated during this period, which created many other severe complications and significant disorder. No credit was given (none was expected) to the former president for closing borders quickly, fast-tracking research towards effective Covid-19 drugs, and getting congress to act on providing financial support. Naturally, the next president took credit for everything. He is now trapped with American chaos caused mostly by administration bungling.

Religion. At the beginning of March 2019, Pope Francis and Vatican “leadership” halted all mass services and the most essential sacraments. Numerous Bishops (not all) followed his lead by closing churches or not providing crucial sacraments, especially during Easter week—the most important days in the lives of all Christians. During a time of world crisis, the sacraments and prayer becomes even more essential. During many earlier centuries of pandemics, the Catholic services were never cancelled. The result is that many Christians avoided mass and sacraments, watched services on TV. Nevertheless, Conservative Catholics met these challenges, refused to stay at home, and attendance at traditional masses increased during the Covid-19 pandemic crisis.

Finance. The cost to government at all levels was extremely significant, in terms of federal and state worker needs and compensation, anti-virus medicines and equipment, and most businesses were disrupted, and now we have serious inflation (9% and rising). The U.S. budget is also out of-control and has to borrow from foreign countries, while interest rates rise, like borrowing from our “socialist comrades” in China. Ironically, the place where Covid-19 began at the Chinese lab has come full-circle back to the Peoples Republic of China, and they suffer more than anyone else might.

Education. Numerous public school closed and union leaders demanded that teachers not go back to the classrooms until their ridicules financial and protection demands were fully satisfied.?Where were their primary concerns and duty for children’s welfare and education? (Most private schools, such as Catholic intuitions of learning ?remained opened, however) Our children at all levels were required to get injections and foolishly wear masks during all classes, which were improperly used and ineffective in many cases. This caused a significant decline in the quality of schooling, especially for the very young, for over two years.

Societies. All civilized societies require security, law-and-order, decent education, and reasonable amount of economic (GDP) growth. We experience about two years without such fundamental needs, where everything else is secondary, except our morality, which also suffered.

Demographics. World population will continue to decline rapidly, during and after the pandemic. The reasons are greater death rates, especially among more older generations, delayed birth rates due to parental concerns about the virus, healthcare, economics, and war, which results in further abortions. The world population is “falling off a cliff” for these reasons among others, since birth rates in the developed world are well below replacement levels, or far less than 2.1 births per two humans. That means Chinese, Indian, Indonesia (90% Muslims) and poorer African countries may radically change global social, cultural, economic, religious and political systems of government in the next few decades.

?World Population Clock: 7.9 Billion People (2022). LEADING COUNTRIES BY POPULATION (2020) & % CHANGES:

1 China 1,439,323,776 0.39 %

2 India 1,380,004,385 0.99 %

3 United States 331,002,651 0.59 %

4 Indonesia 273,523,615 1.07 %

The European Union (EU) has already experienced dynamic cultural and economic changes, with the influx of Muslims from the Middle East, as reported in Douglas Murry’s book, “The Strange Death of Europe.” The U.S. will experience rapid cultural changes with the increase of "undocumented" Hispanics (among other groups) in 2020-22. By the next presidential election in 2024, about 30% of voters will be Hispanic.

Families. Countless families were isolated for two or more years, including this 84-year old writer and wife, with our medical challenges. Many thousands of grandparents died in “Eldercare” facilities that became “deathtraps.” Relatives could not visit them, nor at hospitals, and could not even be present at their final funerals. As a former Eldercare Guardian, I warned readers, with my book, Guardianship Realities, which attempted to expose these appalling conditions.

On the other hand, some children and grandchildren do not want to visit their old folks because it is “not much fun.” What are they going to do when they become elderly? Who is going to visit and help them then? Will they cry (again) that their version of life is not fair? This pandemic has destroyed numerous family relationships. The expression, “out of sight, out of mind” seems operative in these cases, until after the funeral when these “immature adults” collect their inheritance. (We had cases where children rarely visited their elderly relatives, until it was time to read their last will and collect). Families should (must) get back to the Christian idea of sacrificial love, as Christ taught us in the Gospels for 2000 years. These enduring TRUTHS have not changed—and never should be forgotten.

Globally. The U.S. Gov. it seems could not do anything correct globally:

Afghanistan. The hasty Afghanistan troop withdrawal, after twenty years of NATO and U.S. hard work, military deaths and trillions of dollars spent, was a disorderly mess, which caused needless suffering of innocents.

Russian-Ukraine warfare was predictable by intelligence organizations. It appears that the goal of U.S. leadership (and perhaps NATO) is to “bleed Russian forces” at the expense of the Ukraine innocent people. So far, they have intentional (or inadvertently) accomplished that decadent objective.

Russian Energy. The U. S. in 2020 first quickly approved, and then in 2022 disapproved the German-Russian gas pipeline agreement, months after the Russian invasion began in Ukraine. Now Germany has to seek energy from other sources to keep citizens warm, and industry functioning.?Moreover, most of the EU (and U.S.) now needs to find fossil fuel to run it industry. The so-called green deal to prevent “climate change” has been “frozen.”

Iran. U.S. negotiators, in an attempt to prevent Iran leaders from obtaining nuke capabilities, which to this writer is unlikely, have lately been released from its former “terrorist” status, and will soon receive unfrozen billions in assets. ?Senate consultation and approval of this “international treaty” is yet to be achieved (specific secret terms have not yet been revealed).

China. Leaders have handicapped international trade, and essential supply lines are temporarily broken due to the widespread Covid-19 cases for 1.5 billion Chinese people. The pandemic that initially started in a Communist Chinese lab has come back to haunt them. They are now in 2022 paying the penalty for their early leadership deception and cover-up in late 2019.

Political Consequences. Throughout history, pandemics were equated with warfare. However, while this comparison has long been prevalent, little work has been about linking the ethics of warfare to the ethics of pandemics. Because of this lack of scholarship, we applied St. Thomas Aquinas “just-war theory,” which is a canonical articulation of the ethics of warfare, to pandemics. St. Thomas “just-war theory” concerns why governments have expanded authority during pandemics and how governments ought to act during pandemics. These explanations, drawn from the criteria of just cause and rightful intention. Nevertheless, warfare differs from pandemics in various ways. This summary advances the claim that St. Thomas Aquinas just-war theory fails to address concerns of what is “legitimate authority” and does not provide specific?principles for life after a pandemic. This latter concern is reduced by St. Thomas Aquinas’ discussion of peace in the abstract sense. Through the application of St. Thomas Aquinas just-war theory, it is probable that the ethics of pandemics will continue to ascend, providing a better framework to understand governmental action, inaction and especially over-reaction in future pandemics.

Reference: Saint Aquinas, Thomas.?Summa Theologica.

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