Allegedly, Winston Churchill came up with the phrase “never let a good crisis go to waste“. Quora: “Churchill was referring to Yalta and the alliance forged between himself, Stalin and Roosevelt, an unlikely trio that would lead to the formation of the United Nations, creating opportunities in the midst of a crisis.”
Some might argue that the WHO is working on a pandemic treaty (eg, Reuters, WHO). As long as the WHO and countries treat Covid-19 as a pandemic (eg, 1918 Spanish flu, the plague) rather than a global viral disease (eg, my 20 October 2020 blog), I have little faith in such a pandemic treaty.
Some will argue that the World Economic Forum (WEF) uses this pandemic for its Great Reset. In my 2020 blog, I’ve already explained that I have little faith in that (conspiracy-thinking) assertion.
In my view, we have learned nothing from previous pandemics. Previous pandemics had a fatality rate of 3-5% of the global population, and not the about 0.25% Covid-19 fatality rate. The official Covid data show an even much lower mortality rate: c.0,066% (ie, # deaths / world population).
As a result, we are wasting billions of Euros and trillions of US$ and we even fail to expand our healthcare capacity in order to cope with the fall-out of this global viral disease – or the next one (eg, 2015 Ted Talk).
Recently, the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) claimed that the use of COVID-19 pandemic restrictions caused “a greater number of countries [] sliding towards authoritarianism, while the number of established democracies under threat has never been so high” (eg, my recent blog, IDEA press release). Hence, some might argue that Winston Churchill was right indeed.
The abovementioned paragraph is also interesting in the context of this question: do authoritarian or democratic countries handle pandemics better? (eg, Carnegie-2020, the Conversation-2021, ISPI-2021, towards data science-2021). In my view, it is still the wrong question.
We humans seem to have a fundamental problem with high impact and low likelihood events.
In 1953, parts of the Netherlands, Belgium, England and Scotland were struck by a North Sea flood. Wiki: “After the 1953 flood, governments realised that similar infrequent but devastating events were possible in the future. In the Netherlands the government conceived and constructed an ambitious flood defence system beginning in the 1960s [] called the Delta Works []”. Note: bold and italic markings in quote by LO.
Today, there’s no indication that “we” have learned anything from a global viral disease that started in 2019.
When Will We Learn (2008) by David Myles
artist, lyrics, video, Wiki
We walk the line but we can’t tell the truth
We’re tripping on the holes between what we say and what we do
I’m not talking about this side or that
Cause I’m looking at both and I can’t help but ask
When Will We Learn (repeat)
Note: all markings (bold, italic, underlining) by LO unless stated otherwise.
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