If we're lucky we might get out of this with less rapacious globalization and more robust and self-reliant individual nations, which I believe would be better for each country and the planet. I'm perfectly willing to suffer a little for that prize.
I cannot empathize with what the author is feeling at all. Whatever the reason, it feels like the author lives in a completely different reality. We'll become "resentful for people who have it worse than we do"? I mean, I enjoy philosophical meanderings as much as any curious human being, but did this person read what he wrote?
At least in the US, this all has exposed a lot of the problems with various systems, some of which are still not getting very much attention. And there are structural problems this will lay bare, such as the injustice as well as economic stupidity of not having public single payer healthcare. There is unacceptable inequity.
So shouldn't anger and resentment be justifiable?
I guess I'm not sure what the author is looking for. For everyone to pretend the problems laid bare by the epidemic don't exist?
My guess is the next wave of this is when the lockdowns are lifted because the economic costs become too much to bear, and then the deaths and illness still increase — when people realize you can have a lockdown and still afterwards have a growth in cases because there's no vaccine or herd immunity. I suspect things will return to normal and become better in many ways, but become very unfamiliar and worse in others.
Nah. It's not going to get worse - GTFO with all these self-fulfilling prohpecies. It'll get much better. If we play our cards right, we could even create effective therapeutic against common cold, flu, and better treatment protocols for pneumonia. Lower respiratory disease alone takes 160K lives per year in the US (though much of it is caused by flu, which takes 30-60K lives per year). After the C19 statistical carpet bombing everyone is aware of these numbers now, so it should be much easier to get $$$ for R&D to deal with these problems that are as ancient as humanity itself.
The article is about societal consequences, not details about the spread of respiratory diseases. And while this will certainly spur more interest in virology, it's not like we'll magically be able to overcome some of the scientific barriers in the way of addressing the common cold and influenza, both very complex and multifaceted, with just some more r&d money in a short amount of time. More resources will help, but science is as stochastic as it is incremental, and it's hard to say where the next breakthrough will come from
Be that as it may, I'm sick and tired of the "we're all gonna die" rhetoric. It is simply not helpful, at all, even as a precaution. Find a way to channel this crisis into something productive. Find new ways to work. Find new treatments, vaccines, healthcare solutions. Adapt, overcome. Encourage and enable others to adapt and overcome. If we have to stay further apart to make it work, let's find a way to make it work. Support local businesses. Get that delivered takeout. Buy that appliance. Spend that cash if you have it - it keeps people employed. It'll be over, as inevitably as the change of seasons. Optimists win every time.
The rhetoric isn't we're all gonna die. Its that societal tensions and polarization will flare up. It might be helpful to read beyond the admittedly clickbaity headline to look at the meat of the article. I will concede the headline is needlessly pessimistic and clickbaity, and that I also initially thought it was about the spread of the virus - the article can definitely be clearer about what its talking about upfront and be more proactive about offering solutions. But it's not the kind of rhetoric it seems it is.
