How we have reacted to virus threat
THERE are nearly 100,000 cases across the world, with a “significant outbreak” across the UK now likely. Yesterday’s columns consider the impact of coronavirus, on a global and international level, and the rather chin-scratching response from the White House.
The Telegraph
Allister Heath considered that our reaction to coronavirus now could indicate how well-equipped we are to cope with something worse in the future.
“It is unclear just how bad the coronavirus will turn out to be, but we are now in the midst of the third major global scare since 9/11. The last time so many were so worried was when Northern Rock was going bust. None of the previous big outbreaks – such as Sars, Mers or swine flu – had anything like the same psychological impact in Europe and America.
“We shouldn’t panic, but we must be realistic. The best-case (and most likely) scenario is that while there may be many tragic deaths, coronavirus is a dry run, a last warning for a worse pandemic that will erupt at some point in the future; the worst (and least likely) case is that Covid-19 will end up being comparable to one of the four big epidemics of the past 125 years,” he wrote.
“We must hope the coronavirus is defeated soon, but never again must we fall foul of Panglossian stupidity and assume away the risk of a catastrophic pestilence.”
The Independent
John T Bennett focused on President Donald Trump’s bizarre response to the coronavirus, which prompted California, Maryland and Washington to declare states of emergency.
President Trump took umbrage with the World Health Organisation’s mortality statistics, calling it a “really false number”.
“Once again, this White House’s inability to deliver one message is sowing confusion as Donald Trump downplays the threat to Americans and his vice president and top health officials talk about ‘common sense practices’ like methodical handwashing,” he wrote.
“It can happen in the same meeting, with reporters and television news cameras stuffed into a corner of the Cabinet Room or a conference room at a federal health facility.
“The president will lead off, uttering a string of technically correct-but-harsh statements about the virus intended to let people know it’s not that big of a deal. Then Mike Pence and others will warn the number of cases inevitably will rise while advising elderly Americans to maybe, possibly avoid getting on an airplane. Which is it? Who could say definitively? So far, not the Trump administration.”
The Scotsman
Meanwhile Ayesha Hazarika considered whether preventative measures will have any longlasting impact on the way we live.
“We jam our days to the maximum so there’s precious little flex if there should be any kind of physical and emotional malfunction,” she wrote.
“Now some of that is by choice which I am definitely guilty of (I find it very hard to say no) but a lot of it is through necessity, virtue of our increasingly precarious and fragile work patterns especially if you have family responsibilities – causal working, shifts, zero-hour contracts and the ever-expanding gig economy.
“What’s fascinating is how this crisis is forcing rapid changes in our behaviour. Businesses which have long demanded a culture of presenteeism – where your worth is determined by how long your jacket remains on the back of your chair – are all now scrambling around and dishing out laptops and remote access facilities like there’s no tomorrow – literally.”
The Guardian
Owen Jones compared the government response to coronavirus to the way it has reacted to climate change.
“More than 3,000 people have succumbed to coronavirus yet, according to the World Health Organisation, air pollution alone – just one aspect of our central planetary crisis – kills seven million people every year.
“There have been no Cobra meetings for the climate crisis, no sombre prime ministerial statements detailing the emergency action being taken to reassure the public,” he wrote.
“In time, we’ll overcome any coronavirus pandemic. With the climate crisis, we are already out of time, and are now left mitigating the inevitably disastrous consequences hurtling towards us. While coronavirus is understandably treated as an imminent danger, the climate crisis is still presented as an abstraction.”