A Social Virus — The Real Threat Underlying COVID-19
As we weather the storm created by the highly infectious and sometimes deadly COVID-19 virus, I wanted to point out another highly infectious threat that often accompanies such disasters as this one: the social virus.
What I mean specifically are those influences that undermine and erode the stability of a social group, and, like a virus, propagate and spread on their own.
In our particular coronavirus calamity, I am of course referring to the panic associated with this illness.
Canned food, paper goods, and even meats flew off the shelves in response to the escalation of precautionary social distancing measures taken by local governments. We call this “panic buying”, and with price gouging being illegal and pretty much universally condemned as evil, necessities are now in short supply due to this overconsumption.
Stores not carrying the items we have come to expect as part of our daily lives is of course not the worst of it — the stock market crashed, the economy is in the tank, local businesses who were barely holding on as it was are so far underwater that its unlikely they will ever be profitable again.
Is all this damage because of the biological COVID-19 virus?
We are seeing our economic infrastructure crumble in such a way that you would think we are facing a disease on par with the black death — something that kills 1 in 3 or 1 in 4 of the population.
But people are not dying en masse. People are dying, sure, but not nearly enough to warrant the economic collapse we are seeing around us.
What I propose instead is that we are witnessing the creation of a new kind of virus.
A virus that will become ever more relevant as we move into a future world that is immune to geographical separation — one that is intimately connected through cheap flights, electric cars and high speed internet connections.
A social virus such as this one need not be accompanied by an actual virus — that only happens to be the case in our present circumstance. Any sort of panic will do it — any sort of active disruption to “normal” life that is able to propagate itself from person to person, making us each sick with the disease of dysfunction.
I suggest that the social virus that is being created here will be remembered as being more deadly than the biological one. Looking back years from now, as we still struggle to rebuild what was lost, we will recognize this virus for what it was — created by the mind, propagated by the media, and only made worse through over prescription of apparent remedies.
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