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Coronavirus is Teaching Some Hard, Undeniable Lessons

Some Things Can't Be Easily Avoided, Like Increased Socialism

By Wade WainioPublished 4 years ago 3 min read
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Credit: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-death-toll/

COVID-19 has screwed up the world, shutting things down and quite literally creating social distance between people. To many of us, it seems like a very dangerous time, as authorities could very easily overstep their bounds. At the same time, there is definitely validity to many measures being taken to help the spread of this potentially deadly virus. This leaves us at sort of a crossroads. How do we know when authorities have taken a step too far, and how do we know when the virus is over?

For the first question, that is ultimately up to you, the individual. Personally, I think many steps being taken now are practical, especially if the government is actually taking care of those being put out of work. As for the other question, there is some reason to be less fearful about abuse of power, if we just look at the 2002–2004 SARS outbreak.

As a general point, the World Health Organization declared severe acute respiratory syndrome contained in 2003. That, of course, means health officials are probably still capable of saying, "Okay, this threat is basically over now." There is some reassurance in that. It seems we can definitely expect that possibility at some point regarding the current crisis, even though greater global steps are being applied to address this particular outbreak.

Also, let's not downplay what we're up against here and turn it so much into a political matter. The numbers kind of speak for themselves. There were only 774 confirmed deaths attributed to SARS, while COVID-19 has had 65,841 reported deaths as of April 05, 2020. Of course, the actual number is probably higher.

Life Isn't Just About Government or Corporations

While it is possible for authorities to make rotten decisions during this time (and some are doing just that), let's not pretend this is solely about big, bad government encroaching upon our freedoms. If governments act even kind of sensibly, there's less likelihood of chaos.

Also, things that were considered "radical" before seem practical now. This may be a time for Andrew Yang's Universal Basic Income and healthcare for all. In fact, I truly hope we implement those things and keep them going. I also hope we keep existing bans on evictions. The world is changing and we need to keep up, modernize, accept that selfishness and systematically endangering people is not the way.

On that note, I think this crisis also demonstrates our need to establish a worker/consumer-owner system, which is not solely motivated by profits. There's more to the world than putting dollar signs on everything., and booting people out onto the street should be avoided, not encouraged.

What About Nationalism, Wealth and Identity?

Nationalism is being exposed as mostly a sham concept, too. We're seeing the importance of healthcare being treated on a global level. A virus does not particularly care about wealth, class, national identity, borders, sex, gender identity, age, etc. In fact, I've heard examples of people who seemed perfectly healthy getting done in by this thing, as well as certain people under retirement age. You can't just say "Out with the old, in with the new." The young can also be killed by this thing, even if it's a smaller number. Health and well-being are important for everyone, not just a small group or demographic.

We're also seeing the importance of caring about the homeless and/or mentally ill, as they can also potentially get sick and spread the virus. It's gotten so bad that, honestly, even school has been revealed as less vital than basic health and survival. What does this mean? People should do far better to tackle the basics before trying to address everything else. You have to live before you can learn. Also, in order to learn well, people should be able to live well. Social inequality has been highlighted as one of the major obstacles to properly resolving this crisis, and the world at large is getting a very tough lesson.

So, while we can understandably lament this crisis and give corona the middle finger, let's also take the good with the bad. At the very least, COVID-19 has reminded us of where we are, and that there are certain things that simply need to be done, putting all ideology aside. We are all global citizens, whether we like it or not, and it's right there in front of our collective face.

humanity
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About the Creator

Wade Wainio

Wade Wainio writes stuff for Show Snob, Undead Walking, Pophorror.com, Vents Magazine and Haunted MTL. He is also an artist, musician and college radio DJ for WMTU 91.9 FM Houghton.

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