4 essential lessons to be learned from the pandemic Covid_19 virus.
We, the humans, are the most powerful, dominant and intelligent species on the planet earth. Humanity has its traces for about 3.9 million years. Since then, we have the privilege to do whatever we want on this planet as there are no more powerful species besides us who could veto our doings. In our dwelling time on the planet earth, humans have witnessed several events which have significantly impacted us. Let it be, massive wars which were responsible for killing millions, the economic recessions who had paralyzed our socio-economic lifestyle Or a deadly plague which had caused several lives.
Nevertheless, we are not good at taking away the learning lessons from such happenings. It’s never late, Covid_19 has a lot to offer us despite creating panic and chaos. In just two months, the coronavirus has shown the world many hidden signs which should be a wake-up call for all of us.
Racism is a myth: The mother nature has proven that we humans are just a complex bio-machine and nothing more. Our body mechanics work identically and could be impaired from a similar kind of microbe. Any ailment does not look at our passports, skin colours, religions, ethnicities, wealth’s status or languages before damaging our bodies. The funny thing is, despite having such social and economic diversifications, the symptoms and implications of illnesses are precisely the same for everyone. For example, a millionaire from Saudi Arabia experiences the same pain from the sickness as a poor farmer from Namibia feels. In other words, the virus will make sure to do justice among its preys while ignoring any preferences.
Revisiting human Priorities: (Wars or Medical advancements): Setting the right priorities is always crucial. Health care OR ammunitions? The COVID-19 outbreak has answered this question very well. Even though global spending on health care is impressive, the ammunitions continues to be a billion dollars industry worldwide. The global ammunition market size was estimated at USD 20.40 billion in 2019 and is expected to exhibit a CAGR of 3.9% from 2020 to 2027. In the year 2015, Microsoft co-founder predicted that the world is not prepared for any medical emergency. He pro-actively advised that we should start thinking about potentially deadly ailments which might cause mass human extinction. Time has come to analyze what we are up to? Should we continue spending heavily over the war industry? OR we should act sensible enough to introduce massive cuts on trading weapons, and spending that money on research to find new Vaccines. Let us all beware that COVID-19 is just one of the deadly viruses; there could be potentially more. Making pro-active strategies to fight such infections require a considerable sum of money. The world leaders can consider the following things.
- Impose high tax rates on the organization who trade in the ammunition industry.
- Invest those taxes in research and development for new vaccines, and finding a cure for several deadly diseases.
- The governments should restrict the export of weapons to the international markets.
- Limit the sales of the arms to its minimum levels. For instance, only national security agencies should be allowed to buy such weapons to ensure adequate border safety; however, in a limited quantity.
- Re-negotiate the peace deals with the enemy countries to impose massive cuts on the defence budgets for the sake of humanity.
- Rich countries should exchange resources with the developing countries to bring them on the board in the fight against deadly ailments. For example, invest in building laboratories and research centres in the developing world while using their human resources.
- Nuclear-armed countries should voluntarily withdraw their uranium enrichment programs together as such programs require significant money.
Climate Change is a real Monster: Birds are chirping, skies are blue, Ozone is repairing itself, wildlife is roaming freely, waters in the oceans are cleaner, and tourist sites are restoring their natural outlook. What is happening? Well! We have a message from “GAIA” that how badly we were damaging our environment. Thanks to COVID-19 for making us realize how beautiful is our world could be if we continue to be responsible while dealing with our Practices. One stark indicator of the pandemic’s far-reaching impact is its effect on fossil fuel consumption and carbon dioxide emissions. In China, carbon emissions went down approximately 18% between February and March due to a reduction in coal consumption and industrial output as per the figures reported by climate science and policy website CarbonBrief. That downtrend caused the world’s largest Carbon-emitter to avoid around 250 million metric tons of pollution, i.e. more than half the annual carbon productions of the UK alone. Climate change is a real monster which will eat the planet’s future for sure. The upcoming generations will experience hostile weather patterns; more endangered wildlife will become extinct, and new diseases will evolve, in particular the skin infections and cancer. Greta Thunberg, Holly Gillibrand, Leah Namugerwa, Autumn Peltier and many other young environmentalists are frequently emphasizing on the deteriorating health of our planet. But, unfortunately, several heads of states have mocked these young people under the influence of some “Big Shots” corporations as they see these young voices as a threat to their corrupt eco-unfriendly practices. Governments should critically evaluate the implications of notable carbon-reduction during our transition through COVID-19. Also, the causes of such downtrend should be quantified. In this way, the leaders of the world will get the facts straight over the challenges we are facing with the environment, which will ultimately help them to legislate accordingly to flattening the curve of carbon emission globally.
Learn to be more Considerate to others: Sadly,Christopher Nolan was right in “The Dark Knight”.
“Don’t talk like one of them. You’re not! Even if you’d like to be. To them, you’re just a freak, like me! They need you right now, but when they don’t, they’ll cast you out, like a leper! You see, their morals, their code, it’s a bad joke. Dropped at the first sign of trouble. They’re only as good as the world allows them to be. I’ll show you. When the chips are down, these… these civilized people, they’ll eat each other. See, I’m not a monster. I’m just ahead of the curve.”
We have witnessed such civilized people tearing each other’s clothes in the supermarkets to get hand-sanitizers and toilet rolls. We have witnessed such civilized people doing panic-shopping and stocking piles of groceries at their homes. We have witnessed shopkeepers selling highly inflated products by taking advantage of the situation. Where have we reached? What are our moral values? How selfish have we become? These are some honest questions which we should ask ourselves in these hard times. Now is the time to set back, take a deep breath and analyze our social behaviours with fellow human beings. Now is the time to rebuild our social and moral stances at an acceptable level to call ourselves humankind.
To conclude, the recent pandemic is a great learning opportunity for mankind. The governments and individuals should re-consider practices which are deteriorating the overall package of being humans. Its never later to adopt good practices, and make a substantial change for ourselves and upcoming generations before the damages become irreversible.
