Tuesday, March 24, 2020

The legacy of an epidemic

So, if US politcians are now pondering a sacrifice of the old in the interests of the young and the economy, they ought not to forget that it’s the boomers that have most of the capital and that they could change their wills to leave it all to animal shelters.

The UN General secretary António Guterres has tweeted asking combatants all around the world to lay down their arms and come together to fight the pandemic. 

I was up in the middle of the night, and was not alone it seems. Others wrote of 'collective insomnia'. The enveloping silence did seem rather loud, and there also was a bit of a tremor. This set me wondering what would happen should a more geographically-limited and sizeable catastrophe occur somewhere right now (fire, quake, tsunami etc.). 

Just as we appear to have the capacity to come together as a global community, we are actually entering a phase where our ability to respond as such beyond the pandemic is reaching null. 

500 people were arrested on day one of the curfew in Guatemala for ignoring it. There were scenes reminiscent of a Bruce Lee film occurring in Dueñas as cops took on the recusants. Who knew the PMT could do kung fu? 


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