COVID-19: PANIC AMIDST A 21ST CENTURY PANDEMIC

Zurich Main Railway Station at 20.00 hours, Thursday 19th March 2020

Vast cities and metropoles across Europe and North America have fallen silent day and night, and even towns and villages have to abide by the stern dictates of their central governments, forcing people to stay indoors. Hardly anyone ventures out even at daytime and, in any case, all restaurants and places of entertainment, as well as schools, universities, cultural venues, public amenities and most shops and offices, are closed for business. At night, although most of the lights and the colourful, digital advertising boards flash and blinker vibrantly through the night, the roads are eerily empty and the surroundings shrouded in ghostly silence. Devoid of all strollers, clubbers, night workers, and the incessant passage of vehicles moving in and out of lanes, streets and alleyways. However, pacing slowly up and down at street corners or standing still under arches are the dark and fearsome figures in combat dress, unambiguously observing the movement of the few passers-by. Those who have taken to the streets have a good reason to do so, and they mostly walk alone. If not, then never more than two people together. Every now and then a vehicle brandishing military livery cruises almost inaudibly, stopping at intervals to observe any movements on the ground and above. Lights on the top floors are invariably kept dim, and not a soul looks out of the windows, leave alone stand on any of the balconies.

It is not the scene of an alien invasion or of urban warfare in a science fiction film, but a description of any number of cities across Western Europe with the approach of spring in the year 2020. It is a momentary scene somewhere in Europe, reminiscent of nations at war. It is an unprecedented event for Europe after WWII that has been precipitated by the public’s understandable fear of a tiny, microscopic enemy that moves imperceptibly and inaudibly from one human to another. As President Macron of France declared, the nation is at war – against an unconventional enemy. An enemy that has already caused havoc in China and parts of Asia; now it has come to Europe and America to wreak disaster and untold misery to their people. The spreading of the virulent disease will not end there: it is set to bring devastation to Africa, parts of Asia, and Latin America as well. One fears the cost to human lives will be most onerous in the poorer nations in those three continents in particular.

Photos of Zurich under partial lockdown, Bahnhofstrasse at 20.00 hours, Thursday 19th March 2020

As spring approaches, Europe has become the epicentre of the raging disease with Italy the first and worst hit country so far on the continent. Italy has one of the best health care systems in the world, but it is being stretched to its limits by this insidious disease. The rates of infection and death have reached alarming proportions, and every individual in the country is suddenly at risk. It is a great credit to the people of Italy that they have borne the onslaught with dignity and courage, and the nation owes a lasting debt of gratitude to their heroic health care workers who are battling undaunted and selflessly. No one would hesitate to say that their thoughts (and prayers) are with those heroes and their colleagues all over the world!

The coronavirus disease called Covid-19 will be remembered with a mixture of dread and incredulity by generations to come as the invisible enemy that invaded Europe and forced the unprecedented postponement of the 2020 UEFA European Football Championship and IIHF 2020 Men’s Ice Hockey World Championships in Zurich and Lausanne. It may still achieve the unthinkable of all postponements: the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. The hazardous virus has brought mayhem to sports and cultural events all across the continent and forced people to stay in their homes with the minimum of contact to neighbours, friends, and even relatives and family members.

The Covid-19 pandemic will go down in history as the pandemic that almost took the world to the edge of the abyss of total economic meltdown. It has brought life as we know almost to a standstill, and it will potentially do more damage to the world’s economy and bring more anguish to ordinary people than did the banking crisis in 2008. Steadily, all across the globe, fear, panic, and extreme anxiety are taking hold of individuals and whole communities. The lockdowns, curfews, and social distancing will hit hard individuals, communities, and entire societies with varying degrees in the different continents. How far these measures will have a lasting impact on the public are questions that psychologists and other experts are already grappling to find answers and predictions. As the world is caught ever more in the grip of shock, the political establishment has started to reel under the enormous burden of responsibility to tackle the invisible enemy, maintain calm in the public mood, and protecting lives while simultaneously sustaining the economy and the livelihoods of the people. These are unprecedented times, and the world needs unparalleled solutions from their political leaders and the so-called experts. One clear fact has emerged: the decade of austerity prescribed by the IMF and its henchmen among the Establishment in Western countries had left the social institutions and welfare systems under-funded, depleted of vital resources, and, eventually, totally unprepared to withstand a prolonged onslaught such as that of Covid-19.

The second fact to emerge is how quickly those very governments that claimed their treasury coffers were emptied by the financial crash of 2008 and its aftermath and, hence, austerity measures were a necessity, have suddenly found vast amounts of money in the coffers to fight the enemy. They are now ready to apply the Keynesian prescription of fiscal and monetary expansion – a policy that governments all over the world should have followed after the financial crisis of 2008. Had they done so, most countries would have been far better prepared with proper healthcare and concomitant social care facilities to tackle the current ruthless menace. The final conclusion: conservative orthodoxies focused on balanced budgets in times of severe hardship and constraints in the economy will only lead to significant gaps in the economy and tears in the very fabric of society. One can only hope that this will be an unavoidable lesson in a world divided by a minority with ever-increasing wealth and the vast majority living with uncertainty at best or engaged in a constant battle for survival at worst.