COVID-19 is the symptom — the contagion is a crisis of leadership.
We have a once in a century chance to get this right.
Have you ever had to make a really tough decision…under extreme pressure…with everyone watching? Now imagine that you’re the leader of your country deciding how to protect your population from a rapidly approaching and highly contagious virus that we know little about except that it’s deadly and that humanity has no defence for it. What would you do? Would you sit back and let thousands of people die as the entire health care system is overwhelmed or would you curtail people’s ability to move around (and earn a living) so that hopefully more lives can be saved?
Adding to the pressure are that the effects of this decision will play out in real time. Literally the number of deaths will accumulate right before your eyes. The stakes are definitely higher than climate policy decisions that will likely be far more destructive but that won’t be felt for decades to come — on someone else’s watch.
