Global crisis

Read time: 20 minutes

The advent of the interconnected world has brought a ton of good into our lives.

Everything from international travel that takes a few hours to get to the other side of the globe, the World Wide Web and global institutions that help govern a small department of the world.

That is all good, but such an interconnected global system brings with it some problems, such as over reliance on other nations, an inability to escape globalization, a predisposition towards fake news, or the vulnerability regarding a virus that could spread easier than ever.

What is happening right now

As you obviously have heard, in the past few months the COVID-19 outbreak has been grabbing all the news headlines.

What we are experiencing right now is called a pandemic. (dictionary: “A pandemic is a disease epidemic that has spread across a large region, for instance multiple continents, or worldwide.”)

If you’re reading this, you most probably lived through at least another one other pandemic.

In 2002-2003 the globalized world has experienced a real virus outbreak called SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome).

Back then we thought just as well that the world is ending, yet we were able to live through it.

I want to emphasize that this is nothing special.

We’ve made it through quite a few global issues, we will make it through another one.

This is one no different.

Pandemics of the past

People in history have had it much worse than we do now and yet society had not broken down so hard as to hoard toilet paper.

The Black Death (also known as Black Plague), for example has killed roughly 50% of Europe’s population at the time (100.000.000 people worldwide).

Back in the day when Black Death used to be a real issue, we were quite inadequately prepared to deal with it.

In the face of an unstoppable killing machine (which we didn’t even know how it worked – thinking that smell is the cause of our timely death) we did manage to get through it.

Today’s technology and knowledge is much more evolved than what it used to be back in the XIV century.

WHY Coronavirus is worse

Today’s issue is not even close to being as deadly as the Black Death used to be hundreds of years ago.

We are definitely not in a position to get even close to the apocalyptic death toll of the 1300’s, yet I would argue today’s issue is much more pressing than the Black Death used to be.

It is not the virus that makes our current situation particularly vulnerable, but rather the multitude of factors that make our society so amazing.

Having an interconnected news network is amazing, yet it allows for a lot of panic spreading and misinformation.

Having a great availability to any goods and just-in-time delivery is amazing, yet the panic of populations makes our uncontrollable consumerism rather predisposed to working less as a society and much more as scavengers of supermarket scraps, or hunter gatherers looking for hand sanitizer.

Which individuals are affected the most?

In short, everyone is affected.

Absolutely everyone, no matter your domain of activity, no matter where you live, the consequences of a world pandemic will be felt everywhere on the globe at a scale bigger than ever before.

From an economic perspective, the people MOSTLY affected are those whose job requires physical presence, or even worse, whose jobs are closely related to people getting together in for events.

I personally know people who are now broke because of the measures taken against the spread of the virus, or even worse, people whose whole personal economies and families have been completely devastated, leaving them unable to afford groceries.

Everyone from camera men, to performing artists, promoters, , factory workers, club owners have been hit the hardest economically.

People must make a choice between paying bills, buying food for their children, or somehow spreading the cash thin enough to do both.

From a psychological perspective, we are all hit by the absence of socializing, by the absence of going out to do things and meet people face to face.

Having to stay indoors is fine for a little while, but the lack of day to day living, of what we call “normal life” is going to slowly but surely put its toll on us as humans and on our brains.

Isolation is not only unhealthy; it can be critical.

We should remember that we treat the worst of the worst this way.

We put criminals in isolation, not allowing them to see the light of day or other people.

Remember to be as social as you humanly can while not doing anything that may endanger the health others, or even yours.

Seriously!

Take a phone call, have a video call.

Do whatever, just don't go out!

From a physical perspective, the oldest are both the most prone to being affected by the virus and whose lives are mostly hit by isolation, given their need for movement and lack of socializing.

Which entities are affected the most?

From the point of view of companies, again, everyone is affected, those working on physical assets being the most affected.

The inability of firms to adapt to a proper 21st century work style can have huge ill effects on the wellbeing not only of employees, but also the level of, or even existence of revenue.

Companies nowadays have a hard time balancing their human assets (juggling between them wanting to keep as many employees, not go out of business and keep everyone as safe as humanly possible).

The state is trying to do as much as possible to facilitate the cashflow of enterprise (e.g.: postponing the payment of tax) in these times, but the current situation can easily overwhelm the preparedness of states.

From the point of view of countries, it is a huge ass crisis.

They are doing their best so that the common citizen can be as safe as possible.

It is obviously going to be a big hit for the world’s economies, especially those where the virus first started spreading.

The first priority for countries is to make sure their citizens are safe from a medical point of view.

The emphasis is on stopping the spread, on having as few infections within the country, or having the infections permanently stop.

Second on the list is permitting the livelihood of people.

States are doing as much as possible to make sure the citizen still ‘have a life’, they still can conduct their normal life outside the scheme of few months the coronavirus pandemic will take.

They are trying to permit the ordinary person access to education, products and other rights, while also making it bearable for the people and enterprises mostly hit by the corona pandemic to still conduct business / not go bankrupt.

It is a very hard thing to balance, but it is necessary for the people to still be able to afford groceries while being able to not go for the third problem:

They are trying to not go bankrupt as countries.

It is a very rough time and depending on how long this emergency will take, we risk seeing an economic crisis (which I would argue has already started).

People’s needs for goods in a time where not as much cash is coming to their wallet is rough not only on the citizen, but on the state as well.

The vicious cycle of decisions

The country must keep prices in check and allow the citizen subsidizes.

That puts a toll on economic growth which most likely will not only stagnate, but even decrease.

Needing to close factories to stop the spread is a really bad thing for the level of exports, the power of countries to influence what happens to those employees’ salaries and their wellbeing is a hard part of making a decision.

The inability of citizens to buy goods would follow the need for the state to subsidize.

Subsidizing would allow the cashflow of citizen to not freeze, but would put governments at a disadvantage, having to either borrow money, or being unable to cover the hole created by said subsidize.

Also, it leaves less cash for the government to be able to spend, postponing any growth they might have had in mind, being unable to invest in other things that may be really important at the moment (example: Ventilators for hospitals).

Giving companies a slack from paying taxes for a few months is a great way to allow companies to not go out of business, but it’s a really big deal when it comes to what other resources the state has left, limiting their moves set in case of an even worse emergency.

We must not forget that all decisions implicitly affect at least 3 others.

When something that you do not agree with happens, remember how inter-connected the problem actually is and think of everything else that needs to be taken into account before doing 1 small decision.

Who is at fault?

We can talk for days about who should have done what, why the first encounters with the virus were not the appropriate measures and weather media’s coverage is allowing more freedom and knowledge for the common citizen or instilling more fear.

We have statistics saying pretty clearly that the epicenter of the disease started in a wild animal market in China (which was supposed to be illegal, but due to China’s economy it has been allowed to still exist) and that the worst part of the virus / the first cases that lead to everything else have been either silenced or not disclosed to the public.

This blog post is NOT about finger pointing, nor am I going to give my 2 cents on who should have done what, or on the choices each country did and why.

After the world as a whole will recover, we may come back to this crisis and analyze the decisions taken and hopefully learn to do better for whenever the next world crisis will arise.

Until then, we should remember the situation we are in.

The only real threat to the world at the moment is OURSELVES.

If we don’t take responsibility and do our part (that is staying indoors and washing our hands), we are being not only inconsiderate, but even evil.

We have to understand that we may not be in danger, but we may endanger others.

Why a pandemic is a bad thing

You don’t have too think too hard before you can actually find good reasons why the current pandemic is a real problem for our race.

Everything from the lack of mobility, the need for self-isolation, the lack of socializing, the deaths of loved ones, the countless resources that go into isolating the threat to the soon to come recession and everything in between.

The current pandemic is a real problem and it is not something we should be treating lightly, yet it is not all bad.

Why a pandemic is a great thing

According to USA Today, due to coronavirus and the measures taken against it, we might have stopped enough air pollution to actually save more lives than Coronavirus took, helping us take a small step back from rushing to hard into global warming.

( “Two months of pollution reduction “likely has saved the lives of 4,000 kids under 5 and 73,000 adults over 70 in China,” he said.”)

A pandemic, from it’s very definition, is a global crisis.

It is bigger than any 1 country, 1 nation, 1 continent.

No nation can fight today’s war against the virus by itself, no matter how great, no matter how rich.

This is a global endeavor.

We need each other now more than ever.

We need to act as a team, to fight as one, to remember we are 1 people, to remember we are human.

This pandemic has given us an unprecedented opportunity to collaborate, to inter-communicate, to understand.

More than ever before in history, this crisis has brought us closer together.

We all had to learn how to deal with the same evil.

We learned to contribute for those in need.

We learned that as a team, we are much more powerful than mere individuals, than mere nations.

We got the chance to remember what it means to be human.

This allowed us to remembered compassion.

And most of all:

We remembered to freaking wash our hands.

What you can do as an individual to contribute

1. Don’t spread misinformation

Only listen to and share public information from institutions such as World Health Organization, your country’s Internal Affairs Ministry and people who are closely working on fighting the virus.

2. DO. NOT. PANIC.

This is not some apocalyptic scenario.

The end of the world is not upon us.

The current facts are the following:

- there is a virus that is not that deadly

- you may contract it

- you may give it away

- we need to take a small period to quarantine ourselves for our own sakes and others sake

There is no need to hoard a few decades worth of toilet paper.

There is no need for panic.

EVERYTHING WILL BE FINE.

As a race, we’ve gone through much worse.

3. Stay indoors

For the love of everything, stay inside and act in the way of social isolation for the good of everyone.

I’m in the same boat with you.

I don’t like the fact that we have to stay inside either, but for the good of the world, we must do so.

And while we do so, you can check out my friends blog post regarding art in the time of this pandemic.

4. Most importantly: COMPASSION

Be good to people, now more than ever.

Understand the pain that separated families are going through right now.

Understand what it means for those who no longer can afford to put food on the table for their own children.

Appreciate the doctors who’ve gone days without sleep doing everything that is humanly possible.

Be good whenever you get to interact with another fellow human.

Do your part!

Stay inside and wash your hands!

Conclusion

The world has gone through a few crises and this one will be nothing different.

More than ever it will test that which made humans the dominant species on earth.

It will remind us that anything is possible if we act as a team (both from the individual’s perspective and the nation’s perspective), that we are much stronger together, that we NEED each other.

Personally I believe that this crisis has been a good thing.

The fact that we had to act globally towards stopping a huge threat gives me hope for the other crisis we are facing in today’s society.

It has shown the kinks in our armor, in our ability to deal with something on a larger scale than states, or even continents.

I have faith that this, despite all the consequences, shall be a good thing in the long run for the human race.