Human Arrogance

Perhaps it was always going to take another global pandemic to wake us up from our lethargy. As the presupposed apex predator for our planet, we humans have always been somewhat arrogant. We rape and pillage the resources of our earthly host while gleefully ignoring the damage we have wrought. Now, a microscopic challenger has managed a virtual shut-down of much of the so-called civilized world. Many of the ubiquitous governmental “they” and their follower/supporters have prioritized wealth, greed, and our economy over the health of the inhabitants and the environment of the only planet we have.

Hypothetical seasonal flu epidemic spread is depicted here with the colors indicating regions currently infected with seasonal flu (red), refractory and immune to pandemics (purple), and recovered and currently susceptible to a novel pandemic (blue). White lines depict the global flight network. 

While the current U.S. president is certainly responsible for aggravating an already dire situation, he didn’t start this and he is not alone when it comes to sharing some of the blame for this pandemic’s mismanagement. We have long ignored pandemic threats in search of profits. Our nation’s capitalistic healthcare system is founded on maximizing returns on investments so we plan for normal caseloads and not for worst-case scenarios. We’ve been here before and as the adage goes, those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it.

Long before air travel allowed humans to move around the globe in a day, we had The Black Death of 1346-1353, the Third Cholera Pandemic of 1852-1860, the Flu Pandemic of 1889-1890, the Sixth Cholera Pandemic of 1910-1911, and the Spanish Flu Pandemic of 1918-1920.  After international air travel became available in the 1950s, we had the Asian Flu of 1956-1958, the Flu Pandemic of 1968, the Swine Flu of 2009-2010, and the HIV/AIDS Pandemic of 2008-2012. So, in the year 2020, why are we now surprised that we are facing another pandemic? We were warned. We knew this was coming. We didn’t have a plan and we didn’t have the administrative agencies in place to enact the plan that we didn’t have.

Quick check

In a November 14, 2017 article published on the Global Biodefense website titled April Showers..., Bring Pandemics, they stated that, “One might expect that the risk of a new pandemic is highest at the height of the flu season in winter, when viruses are most abundant and most likely to spread.  Instead, all six flu pandemics that have occurred since 1889 emerged in spring and summer months.”

"Statistical simulations suggest that Northern Hemisphere flu pandemics are most likely to emerge in late spring or early summer at the tail end of the normal flu season, according to a new study   published in PLOS Computational Biology."

We can’t have a capitalistic healthcare system and expect that it will build expensive emergency room facilities and invest in equipment where they will never see a financial return. It is the responsibility of the federal government to foresee things like pandemics and be prepared. This should not be a time for non-medical legislative bodies to try to figure out how to respond; the response plan should have already been in place. At the first sign of a possible viral outbreak, we should have merely activated the response outlined in the plan. In this country, some of this administrative capability was in place but had been recently dismantled in order to afford us the ability to further fan the flames of an already healthy economy. We issued unneeded tax cuts and corporate financial incentives and the economy soared to new heights.  Bigger, faster, and more furious are not always good things, even when discussing an economy. When the pandemic hit, as many knew it would, the global economy slowed to a near halt, the stock market plummeted, we lost all the gains of the past three years, and we are now headed toward a recession. The “fast and furious” approach quite often results in a crash and burn.  Take a bow, Mr. President.

Our response?  A perfect 10.   Donald Trump, March 16, 2020

As a fellow apex predator, I have realized that certain situations can change that cocky status in an instant. I can remember from my youth skin diving and spearfishing in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. I had speared a large red snapper in his reef hideaway and while I pondered how to get my spear and its prize back to the dock, I spotted a much larger-than-me shark that seemed to be looking for his own dinner. I was no longer at the top of the food chain; I was the next link.

The Three Little Pigs

I feel our legislators need to go back to nursery school and relearn the lesson of The Three Little Pigs. When our economy was strong, it was then time to invest in our infrastructure.  That investment would have included a physical ability to shore up our medical response capability at such time as the need would surely arise.  That investment would have had long term benefits in terms of new jobs and much needed physical improvements that had been long overlooked.  We needed a strong brick-like system and not one made of sticks and straw.

The wolf came down the chimney...

 
The short-term tax breaks and corporate incentives may prove more costly than we could have imagined.  Well, now the big bad wolf is at our door and he may just blow our fragile economy off its foundation, not to mention the human misery and loss of life. Had we been the smart pig of storybook fame, we would now be feasting on wolf stew.