State of Health & The Global Response
The recent crises has exposed the weaknesses of our global structure, and the sooner we dare to be honest with each other, the safer we’ll become
“I had a little bird
its name was Enza
I opened the window,
And in-flu-enza.”
(1918 children’s playground rhyme)
When the Spanish flu hit the world a century ago, the residents of this planet were busy digging trenches and throwing hand grenades at each other. Today we have different concerns. We argue about global warming, try to figure out how we can build more durable screens for flip phones, and wonder if the stock market rally can go forever.
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip‘ screen gets easily scratched, but that didn’t stop it from being sold out in China. The stock markets had their worst week since 2008, and nobody knows how bad the upcoming economic data will be. We also met the new face of the climate issues, Naomi, who is presented as anti-Greta. “The reason I don’t like the term anti-Greta is that it suggests I am an indoctrinated puppet, I guess, for the other side,” she says in one video. As much as she wants to see herself as an independent voice in this matter, she is getting promoted by a climate sceptic think tank whose director explains why they chose a young German girl for their campaign: “To the extent that Naomi is pretty much the same, just with a different perspective, yeah, I think that it’s good that people will look at the two as similar in many ways.”
The world may be a different place than it was in 1918, or maybe it isn’t. The recent health crises has exposed the weaknesses of our global structure, and the sooner we dare to be honest with each other, the safer we’ll become. We are facing global supply chain issues and product shortages. The U.S has a 748 Billion USD military budget but there has been a shortage of protective gear. Experts think the country may need as much as 300 million N95 masks, while the reported stockpile is around 12 million. The U.S government is considering using “War Powers” to order factories to churn out millions of protective masks amid the growing coronavirus crisis.
The Japanese Government is closing schools for a month. The Prime Minister faces a political backlash for not consulting with key officials. They say the government cannot order schools to close, a power that belongs to local councils, and authorities in many regions said they were neither consulted nor warned about the decision.
At the same time the number of Covid-19 cases are increasing in Italy, and Europe doesn’t know how to handle her open borders policy during the health crises.
These are major powers with countless experts and mega resources. It turns out nobody has prepared clear guidelines on how to respond to a pandemic when the need arises. Are you surprised? You shouldn’t be. Instead of focusing on how to solve the complexities of the 21st century, we have spent the last two decades around the globe with rising political polarization and endless rivalry. We can shout “my team against your team”, but neither the virus nor the changing climate belong to any teams. We have urgent problems. They require collaboration, detailed planning and a willingness to put the wellbeing of this world above short-term interests. Only then will we dare to speak the truth and make healthy decisions based on reality.
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