Abellanosa: Lessons from Covid-19

Abellanosa: Lessons from Covid-19

IN A 2014 article on the Ebola outbreak, Calloway Scott wrote “[d]isease and responses to disease are always politicized and always have political consequences.” He ended his piece saying: “[p]olitical and economic agendas shape the way public health science is understood and implemented. Ebola won’t be the last global health scare; it’s time we took better stock of the politics of past epidemics, so we’ll be better prepared for the ones in the future.”

More or less six years later the world is facing another disease. This time it’s something not yet familiar. We have been awakened once again to panic. After weeks of relative silence on the disease, people are back to their worry about its effects and impact. On March 7, the World Health Organization had 100,000 cases for its last count. Two days later however the Philippines would be surprised by a hundred percent increase in its cases. From ten cases in the evening of March 8 to an additional ten, thus a total of twenty cases in the afternoon of March 9.

This scenario apparently increased people’s fears. Italy has had to lockdown the whole territory if only to prevent further transmission. Even religious activities have not been spared. The Vatican had to innovate some of its activities if only to minimize the chances of viral transmission. Pope Francis had to cancel his public appearances in St. Peter’s Square. Locally, classes have to be cancelled. Stability is nowhere in the horizon, not until the cases will go down and panic would subside.

It seems that we are overtaken by events everyday. No one has yet fully mastered the phenomenon that we are dealing. Sadly, it highlights from time to time how much of the unknown humanity has not grasped. While this is the situation in the scientific level, all other dimensions of human life are affected: politics, economics, and culture.

Covid-19 has brought out the worst in us. It has shown the prejudices amongst peoples. This is something though not new but nonetheless sad to think in a world that has promised a thousand times to advance the cause of humanity. Even in the worst of times, we see how some privileged people think that the world’s misfortunes would only come from a certain geographic region.

But more than this the current situation has revealed further the weakness of our economic system. At its core is “human interest.” And we have been made to believe that if only this self-interest blends with benevolence then everything will be perfectly fine. After all, there will be an “invisible hand” that will guide us. We thought that profit from our capitalist transactions would sustain us through and through. Now, we have to rethink this.

We have traded our lands for farming with buildings and resorts. Many were convinced that they don’t need to plant coconuts so long as they have the money to buy it elsewhere. Let capital increase and the rest will follow. The growth that we have been measuring was all about our mobility and connections. Globalization connected us but it has also facilitated a faster sharing of our miseries. Capitalism for all its promises of triumph is now the problem rather than the solution. Agrarian countries like the Philippines would eventually realize that survival would be difficult should there be a lockdown.

And we cannot miss the weaknesses of our institutions. For all the misfortunes it has brought on us, at least the virus has revealed truths which our biases have prevented us from admitting. The weaknesses of our system are made evident, as well as its lack of the very “inner logic” needed for survival vis-à-vis social threats. Despite the inconvenience it has caused, Covid highlights the many limitations of our system. And it shall continue to test not just our immune system but also our capacity to solidarity as a race.

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