The coronavirus outbreak has set a domino effect in motion. The end of which we can’t see because we’re still in its early phases, watching as the first domino falls and the next begins to wobble.
We’re living in a crisis with few precedents. Yet the response from the US and the UK has been slow and ineffectual, even deliberately so. The British government has been forced to retreat from its ‘herd immunity’ strategy of allowing the virus to infect most of the population.
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump is eager to reopen the American economy. He has even said he wants the United States back to work by Easter. This is while the Trump Administration has pumped $2.2 trillion into the economy, even posting one-off cheques to citizens.
Why are some governments still reluctant to take action to contain COVID-19? Could it be that the Trump and the Johnson government fear something more than tens of thousands of citizens dying?
In the past, pandemics have sown the seeds of rebellion. Not least because periods of emergency powers and containment tend to generate discontent. However, many regimes have been forced by such outbreaks to enact social and economic policies they would ordinarily oppose.
It’s when the outbreak ends, and the rulers decide to roll back the policies that helped keep society going, that the population faces a stark choice: Either accept a worse future or fight for a better tomorrow.
The full article can be read at The Battleground.
Joshua White 