Everyone will come out of this bruised and blue. Those who are still thinking "how is this going to help my political partisans" don't understand the enormity of what's about to hit us.
When the nation goes to war, people are all gung ho and nationalistic, singing anthems and marching in the streets to support the troops... until the caskets come home. The caskets are yet to come home.
This is an extremely egalitarian virus. It doesn't care about your politics. It doesn't care about your color, race, creed, or whether you're rich or poor. It's going to wash over every country of the world. And it'll expose inequality and ineptitude in a very grotesque way.
If you're thinking "how do I use this against my enemies" then you're like the two men who were playing poker on the deck of the Titanic (and one of them was cheating).
This virus does not care about rhetoric, does not respond to orders from governments, and doesn't give a shit about your populist narratives. Populists and authoritarians who are happy and trying to exploit this should wait until people are dying in hospital parking lots.
Most people can't see it because most people succumb easily to mental inertia and can't absorb when things are about to really change, and the normal is about to be lost. We're not in the thick of this yet. Revisit your thoughts and opinions when we are.
Populist rhetoric will not build hospitals and will not save lives. Only expertise will. Perhaps after we go through this people will rediscover the value of real expertise. Give me an expert who can save my life, not a populist who sells me another lie.
The world is talking about Italy, Spain and New York. Three rather wealthy spots in the world who are getting absolutely slammed. This is going to hit Egypt and Gaza and Idlib and Sudan and Somalia. Somalia has 15 million people and a grand total of 2 ICU beds.
May we all rise to the occasion. Pandemics have always changed history. What world we get afterwards is up to me and you.
