Human Aggression

Day 5 of my mandatory Working From Home (WFH)! My company followed suit of other area companies and mandated a 2-week WFH in the wake of COVID-19. At first, I thought no big deal; after all we are used to WFH in the tech industry, but for 1-2 days, not extended periods. Soon the reality is kicking in. You don’t get to see your colleagues at office and friends and relatives outside. Human beings are social animals and now I feel like we are self imprisoned, well I meant self quarantined! You cannot go to restaurants, theaters, malls, vacation; life appears to be at a standstill.

And now the schools have decided to close too! The dark, gloomy, rainy weather is not helping either. If this is the mental state after just 5 days, imagine folks in Italy where the entire country is on lockdown and what about Wuhan where 11 million people are in quarantine for nearly two months!

I am sure the initial 2 weeks of self quarantine can easily turn into 2 month long mandate by the authorities. People have started panic buying of daily necessities as if end of the world is here, store shelves are empty. Airline and tourism industry is taking a direct hit with cancellations and virtually empty flights. Countries are also going into self quarantine mode by not allowing visitors to get visas and mandating 2 weeks of quarantine for them. People in transit have a hell lot of time at the airports with excessive health screening and long queues. It’s imperative everyone follows the norms of self distancing during these uncertain times.

Inconvenience aside, look at the erosion of the net worth for the people. In just 2 weeks, American investors lost 3 trillion dollars. Can we keep the markets closed, at least that will put a halt on further erosion? Folks nearing retirement have seen that they have to work more years before they can retire. Next time, we may be in that boat. Next time? More on that later.

But what about those who are infected? If you are young and got the disease, you are better off because most likely you will come out of it unscathed and you would have gotten immunity from COVID-19 which will help you in its next outbreak even though age may not be on your side then. But those with severe symptoms or who died because of this are not in luck, and those are mostly the elderly. In Italy, a person died at home but because of the lockdown, authorities could not dispose of the body for 2-3 days. Imagine his wife’s plight!

All of this and much more to come, for what reason? Because a few thousand folks somewhere in China relish the meat of wild animals, the entire world is held hostage? This is not the first time, we experienced this with SARS pandemic as well. Luckily, its effects were not as damaging. After all, nature is working on perfection and now it unleashed a more potent weapon on humanity for encroaching it.

Nature is constantly working on creating a counterattack on human aggression. Next time, it will come with an even more deadly weapon. Who knows when. COVID-30 could be more transmittable and deadly. Or could it be COVID-25 or COVID-20 itself? That outbreak may target a completely different demographic, could be kids, young adults? As long as we humans continue to damage the ecosystem and drive (wild) animals to extinction, there surely will be another such outbreak, not in the distant future. It’s nature's way of defending itself.

We have seen other outbreaks like Avian flu, swine flu and mad cow disease. Because they originated from domestic livestock, which is monitored well, they did not go out of control and we could gain upper hand fast.

Bill Gates had warned us of the impact and our unpreparedness for combating such an outbreak back in 2015 (https://www.ted.com/talks/bill_gates_the_next_outbreak_we_re_not_ready/up-next?language=en). If world organizations had paid heed to it, we would have been better prepared for it by now. However we should do better than just preparing to fight against such an outbreak, we should prevent such an outbreak in the first place, to the best of our capabilities. 

Where to start? The entire world needs to pressure China and other countries to immediately stop wild animal sales. If it happens once (SARS), it’s a mistake. If it happens again (COVID-19), it’s a crime; a crime against humanity and nature. Just fighting Global warming without regards to the balance of ecosystem is not good environmental citizenship.

China finally banned wild animal sales by late February, more than two full months after starting the outbreak. Could/should they have not done it sooner? Of course, but the wild meat market is worth billions of dollars with so many players in it. It’s a miracle such an outbreak has not happened earlier. Oh by the way, after SARS, China did ban wild animal market, but in the last 15 years it came back up and thrived well. We cannot let this happen again, ever.