I’VE listened of late to more than a few commentators talk of pandemics such as the coronavirus being “great levellers”. There’s no doubt that the danger such a contagious disease poses pays no respect to borders, wealth, or status no matter where you are. Nevertheless the notion that somehow everyone’s in the same boat when it comes to such a threat is patent nonsense.
Just as with other crises, even a fast-moving contagion like this one, there will always be those far better placed to ride out such a storm. Hard as it is to grasp, too, there will even be those who – purely out of selfish interest, greed or preservation of influence and power – will seek to benefit in some shape or form from the hardship and suffering of the majority.
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Time and again across the world I’ve witnessed how people’s hidden mental state rises to the surface in times of threat. More often than not, it reveals what we value most and that, sadly, is not always what you might hope for or expect.
If there is a real sense of universality in terms of what such a pandemic presents, it’s the perversity of how some people who are usually quick to condemn others for their actions when faced with existential threats, fail to see the irony in their own behaviour.
Just take a look around right now at many of those among the first to stockpile food, and toilet rolls, while wearing next to useless face masks and making plans to get their kids as far away as possible from the coronavirus.
Is it just me or are many of these people precisely the same ones who are among the first to denounce those fleeing war, famine and disease elsewhere in the world? As with all potentially life-threatening crises, such events have a habit of bringing out the best and the worst in people. Then there are others who simply resort to type.
Just a few days ago, reports in various news outlets told of how “self-isolation” for some of the richest people in the world means flying off in specially chartered jets, complete with private doctors and nurses on board, to holiday homes in places so far untouched by the virus.
Others, too, are said to have been laying siege to doctors in expensive Harley Street private clinics in London, and across the world demanding private coronavirus tests.
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But before we instantly condemn such moves, ask yourself this question: were you equally financially privileged, would you not also do the same, and if not, why not? Would perhaps some sense of solidarity or moral concern act as a brake on your decision to get as far away as possible from the danger to you and your family?
Most of us, of course, are in no position financially or otherwise to even consider such a course of action. And this, too, before the fact that many of us need to be here for those among us who are especially vulnerable, the elderly, alone, homeless people, and those whose poverty has long since entrapped them in the worst of what life throws their way.
Faced with a crisis such as the coronavirus there will always be those who blithely proclaim “I’m Alright Jack”, even if things are far from tickety-boo in the way Boris Johnson’s Government has so far handled the crisis.
Deadly diseases are a major worry for us all, but there is simply no escaping the fact that the impact on those who are poorer is much heavier. It’s the same story elsewhere across the world where the coronavirus is taking hold.
If the risks to the most vulnerable in our own community are obvious, then imagine how much this is magnified in places like Syria or Yemen. In these war zones, hospitals and other medical facilities are already swamped and deliberately targeted, forcing the mass dislocation of millions into unhygienic refugee camps, with hardly any services and rampant malnutrition.
In other words, there are lessons here for us all in this crisis. The first is that far from being a “great leveller”, the coronavirus pandemic is exposing inequality afresh. Where poverty exists people are more at risk. Should those caught in poverty’s trap succumb, they are less likely to recover and the disease will take a bigger toll on their lives.
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The coronavirus crisis is revealing other lessons also well worth heeding. Take, for example, our normalised fixation with things material. Talk to some people and they seem more concerned about the purely economic implications of the virus rather than its impact on people.
Yes, I know the two are inextricably connected and loss of work and wages is equally damaging to the most vulnerable, but this is a far cry from those cynically looking at diminished labour availability or the price of oil. Then there are those lessons we can learn just from watching how some manipulate the crisis for their own political means and ends.
Just think back to the end of 2019 and start of 2020. Masks were de rigueur then too, worn to protect against tear gas in the many protests that sprung up around the world against injustice and inequality. Now they are now worn to protect against the virus.
This has not be lost on some political leaders in various parts of the world, from Hong Kong to Baghdad, Beirut to Bangkok and beyond, who – sensing that a very different kind of fear has set in on the streets and boulevards globally – have sought to use the coronavirus as a means to suppress such dissent.
Where streets and squares were once crammed with tens of thousands of protesters seeking social change, many are now largely deserted, the silence undoubtedly music to the ears of those autocrats and authoritarians determined to stay in power at any cost.
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All of these are warning lessons the coronavirus crisis has thrown up. But, equally, it has given us positive pointers for the future. Chief among these is that more than ever there is the need to tackle inequality and ensure universal health care.
It points also to the fact that global connectivity is with us whether we like it or not, and the need for international co-operation in empowering society as a whole is vital.
Above all, though, the virus stands as a stark reminder that far from such crises being “great levellers”, for now they remain sadly all about winners and losers.
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