Let’s not pretend we didn’t know this was coming. Let’s not pretend we didn’t know how ill-prepared we always were for this. Let’s just stop acting so damn surprised, okay?
Epidemiologists and development experts have been warning us about precisely this for decades. Even more specifically, scientists had warned us about a potential novel-Coronavirus epidemic more than a decade ago.
“The presence of a large reservoir of SARS-CoV-like viruses in horseshoe bats,” the study authors noted in 2007 “together with the culture of eating exotic mammals in southern China, is a time bomb,” the scientists concluded in their study, urging that the “need for preparedness should not be ignored”.
We ignored them and yet this is exactly what happened. I refer to us as a collective because this is not just a failure of governance, but society. Not just a particular society, but the global society. It’s easy to blame the Chinese government or culinary habits of a set of people in others parts of the globe, but the point here is that a disaster of this magnitude could have arisen in any part of the world and we still would have been caught off guard. If a virus as deadly as SARS-CoV-2 emerged in, say, Slovenia eight years from now, do you really believe we would have developed the capacity to stop it? Given our inertia, i’d be surprised if anyone answered yes. Officials around the globe are now blaming the sheer scale of the crisis instead of taking responsibility for ignoring warnings and making limited investments in capacity-building over the preceding decades, even when it was abundantly clear something like this would happen.
Surely, we didn’t think we could enjoy high-speed internet, rapid international travel, dine at the same restaurants as someone in New York, wear the same shoes as someone in London, use the same smartphone as someone in Tokyo, all without any trade-offs?
With a culture that regards individualism in high-esteem, focuses on immediate gratification, mass consumption, and mocks an academic bent of mind, is it really surprising we did not prepare? A world where social media and corporatization of mass media have created massive echo-chambers rejecting expert knowledge and warnings? In a world where trite, misleading, and partisan talk shows take up a major chunk of our attention, instead of informed discussions. We ignored and continue to ignore warnings in service of a mad confirmation bias that everything is and always will be alright. A quick glance at world history would have made it obvious that we would eventually have to grapple with a pandemic of this nature. But how could we have prepared when we gave scant attention to history, science, and expert knowledge? Instead, we mindlessly absorbed vacuous entertainment, championed fame for its own sake, assigned more prestige to celebrities, armed forces or superstars and yawned when scientists, doctors, public intellectuals, or academics uttered a single word.
We didn’t listen because we weren’t really paying attention. Let’s just admit that we simply weren’t interested. And this pandemic isn’t just it. We are already being warned of other grave threats such as climate change but we barely listen, much less force corporations and governments towards reform. We fling blame at corporate media but fail to see how our own consumption patterns dictate the content it produces. When information and news become a business, we as consumers dictate what plays on our screens. No, we say, it’s the government’s job to foresee these problems and prepare. Sure, maybe. But are we prepared to take a moment and reflect on our collective responsibility or will we lay blame at government doorsteps, refusing to acknowledge how our priorities shape the policies made by those who seek our votes?
The Covid-19 crisis will last for many months up to a year or more, and the disease will stay with us until a vaccine is devised or we develop herd immunity. We aren’t anywhere close to the former as it can take between 12 to 18 months. For herd immunity, between 60–70% of the population has to be infected and it may mean millions, if not tens of millions of deaths around the world. Trillions of dollars have already been wiped off the global economy and the world is likely entering an economic recession unlike any seen in decades, one that will change the course of our lives.
We as a collective are responsible for this. We champion the individual and then are surprised to discover how even another’s sneeze can send us or our loved ones to death. We praise our nations and our cultures but silence those who question or criticize it. Then we feel helpless as our borders become useless and cultural beliefs stand silent. We have more tanks than we have ventilators and more soldiers than we have doctors. We line the pockets of billionaires who wreck our environment, then cry foul when we struggle to breathe. Our stadiums and shopping malls are larger than our universities and research institutes. A flashy car is always more prestigious than a degree. Our actors rake in millions as our scientists struggle to make a living. We’re willing to pay an extra buck for a trendy jacket but feign poverty when it comes to taxes. Then we decry the state of our health infrastructure and express shock at the rich using private facilities. It’s the same story in every damn part of the world. Isn’t it?
Still, as the threat of death or illness looms large we again choose to follow quacks, slap our individuality on our foreheads and dismiss calls to stay home. We expect the community to respect but consider ourselves apart from it.
We’re still not really listening, are we?
