“It’s up to science not fiction”. Before Covid vs After Donald
Our worst fears have come to pass. It could not have been written in a more terrifying way by Asimov, Hitchcock, Tolkien, Verne or G.RR.M. The battle for middle earth has begun; we are in an unexpected journey; the wall won’t save us. The White Walkers are already here, and the aliens have gone around the world in eight days. They first landed in December and spread across the entire world by March 11.
This alien invasion was a clever one. We never saw these invaders coming. In fact, they had been here for a long time quietly mutating and waiting for the right moment and the right chance to strike us. They did not come on brightly coloured UFOs with flashing lights, but while we partied, worked and went about our normal lives, the invaders struck. They cunningly entered our food chain in our most populous country; and then got airborne by catching flights to all parts of our globe then before we really knew what we were dealing with - A global emergency which brought life as we knew it, to a screeching halt.
These aliens have since caused our economies to crash; prevented us from going outside; caused riots and social disorder; created global fear and panic and changed our lives forever. This foreign invader has poisoned the systems of millions of people across the planet, made millions extremely sick and killed hundreds of thousands of persons in a matter of months. Our missiles, nuclear weapons or the satellites we have pointed to the heavens are totally ineffective against this alien, and as a people we have been seeking to defend ourselves in the wrong way. In the past, it was not spaceships from Mars that defeated the dinosaurs, but climate change. Yet we pretend that climate change is not real, and we continue destructive practices which will eventually lead to unprecedented consequences for us.
The same denial approach and politicizing the solutions with which we are treating climate change is the same way we have treated this alien invasion. In fact, while the invasion was well underway some of the leaders of our greatest countries sought to underestimate it, saying:
Trump - 5.9 million cases
“It’s going to disappear. One day, it’s like a miracle – it will disappear”
Bolsanaro - 3.6 million cases
“...Don’t think it will reach that point. Especially because Brazilians have to be studied. They don’t get anything. You see the guy jumping into the sewer there, going out, diving, right? And nothing happens to him.”
Lopez Obrador - 568 thousand cases
“We’re going to keep living life as usual.”
Johnson - 327 thousand cases
“Perhaps you could take it on the chin, take it all in one go and allow the disease, as it were, to move through the population, without taking as many draconian measures.”
And if our leaders weren’t bad enough, we have sought to create division, rancor and opportunistic claims of resistance to the very measures designed to protect our own lives. We have resisted staying home to wall ourselves in from this invader. We won’t wear our masks which protect us and our loved ones and some of us are refusing to heed quarantine measures. We are in such a hurry for life to go back to “normal” that we have forgotten the global emergency we are facing. For us the alien is a great ‘inconvenience’.
In fact, as if out from the greatest collection of stories ever compiled, we are again facing two great transitions in history. The BC. period is gone; not Before Christ, but Before Covid. Life will never be the same again and the faster we realize, that the better. Those of us who are in a hurry, may sadly not transition to the next phase. Governments that are too quick to open their economies, to abandon public health measures and to welcome tourists from hotspots. NGOs and Opposition groups, seeking to play politics and to divide the country; businesses looking at profits over people and individuals claiming rights and freedoms which cannot safely exist now, may all not make it to the next phase. The BC period has ended and the way we exist in the future will be drastically different.
How different, will depend on what happens in the AD. Not Anno Domini but, After Donald or About Donald. The impact of Donald Trump on the world and on the COVID 19 pandemic has been so great that it has changed the world indelibly. The AD period is about what is next. The A.D. period which will be actualized in a few weeks will decide how the world goes forward and how we deal with this alien COVID invasion. Consider this: 4 percent of the world’s population lives in the USA; yet the USA has 25 percent of all COVID 19 cases, and roughly one quarter of all deaths.
The AD period will most likely decide how the rest of the world is able to recover from this, as the impact of the United States on the global economy, global politics and the global scientific community is gargantuan. Will we unite around scientific solutions and allow the scientists to do their work without interference? Will we come together as one people and put up the greatest fight we can against this alien invader? Or will we continue to peddle fake science, mixed messaging on masks and social distancing?
Listen! The aliens have landed, we are under threat and faced with opportunities to change. BC is gone. AD is on the way.
Wear your masks, socially distance, be kind and considerate to others and pray.