The leaders of Britain and the United States were shown a forecast which predicted that, in the absence of harsh quarantine measures, the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) would cause millions of deaths in those two countries alone. (Many of these deaths could be collateral deaths caused by people sickened by the virus overwhelming the health care system, and sapping resources away from others.) They further predicted that those harsh measures would need to be in place until a vaccine is created in order to limit the amount of dead.
A vaccine could take as many as 18 months to create.
This is a cold and brutal truth; the world cannot sustain a quarantine for that long. There is not enough food to sustain such a shutdown. The economy cannot sustain such a shutdown.
We have entered a moment where decisions are currently being made by the leaders of the world that could result in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. How long can the quarantine last before the economic toll is so great that people can no longer afford basic necessities? How long before the the supply chain gets disrupted to the point where supply shortages are causing famines?
This is the decision; allow the virus to spread while insisting the most vulnerable populations remain under quarantine. Or kill the economy which will eventually result in more widespread suffering.
This is the harshest of all realities; they will come to the conclusion that the relatively young and healthy are the least likely to get sick. They will tell people to go back to work. They will ask all others to quarantine. Life will resume, the virus will spread, but it will not kill as many people as it may have. But the people it does kill, we knowingly traded their lives so that our way of life could continue in some shape or form, albeit altered.
While every available resource should be put to use finding a vaccine, we live under a new and harsh reality; our way of life was never sustainable. Anyone paying attention could have and should have predicted that this was a likelihood. Now we know. But what do we do with the knowledge?
Humanity stands on a sharp precipice. We either find common ground, set forth a join effort to create a vaccine and do our best to take care of the vulnerable among us, or we fracture and the life of leisure that we know ceases to exist, overwhelmed by chaos.
Historically, the moment that man is arrogant enough to believe that nothing can stand in our way, collapses happen. Let us hope we find the humility to help each other on a global scale.
