After World War I came to an end and soldiers from war zones to their homes all over the world. But as the bloodshed had come to an end, another kind of disaster was about to strike. These soldiers, who had been infected with a virus in the foxholes spread it to the rest of the world.
This virus would later be known as Spanish Flu, the deadliest of pandemics in recorded history that wiped out 50 million people.
Remember, this was a time where the world didn’t move as much as it does today. Air travel was nowhere at a scale that is seen today. There was no way for the virus to spread that quick and yet, it did.
Ever since then, virologists have been trying to predict the next pandemic, the next rapidly mutating virus that could pose a threat to us as a species.
Now, it has been impossible to predict such a pandemic but it has been repeatedly said, loud and clear, that it’s not a question of not ‘if’ but ‘when’. The next pandemic was always on the way and it’s here now.
Scientists have been saying this for years. A little Google search will tell you that.
So why aren’t we better prepared for this one? The COVID-19 was first diagnosed in December of 2019, but to be perfectly honest, the world has had a century to prepare for this.
I am not an expert on virology. So I am not claiming that we should have developed a master vaccine. But as a common man, who will be amongst the worst affected if situations get worse, all I want to ask is, why aren’t we better prepared?
Why aren’t there enough hospitals, or medical staff or ventilators? Why the world, as a single entity spends so little on health care when we know that the Spanish Flu had killed more people than both the World Wars combined?
Wonder how our medical systems run out of masks and PPE in a few days but our riot police never runs out of tear gas and our armies never run out of bullets and bombs
— İyad el-Baghdadi | إياد البغدادي (@iyad_elbaghdadi) March 29, 2020
Why are our services so inadequate, our testing systems so slow and why aren’t there more experts hired by governments who can identify the virus and patient patterns across the globe. Why are our systems so slow that it takes a year and a half to find a vaccine?
A civilisation that doesn’t learn from the tragedies enforced by nature, doesn’t evolve. We don’t evolve, we die. This planet has been hostile, long before us. We cannot mould it according to our will. We might think we can, but like all mobsters of history, we have been blinded by our hubris.
After all, even the notorious Al Capone, for all the crimes he had committed, suffered the wretched filth of Alcatraz for the act of not paying his taxes.
We are all prepared for a nuclear war, infact we bang our chests like our primate ancestors and yet we are getting done by one virus we haven’t found a vaccine for. Everyone should be asking their governments about this. All of us. Because, if we survive this, there will always be the next pandemic for us to suffer from.
