What if science is beaten by COVID-19 and our only recourse is permanent revision to our way of life?

background graphic redBy Pepper Parr

July 25th, 2020

BURLINGTON, ON

 

What’s next?

Does anyone know?

An interesting comment from an individual who brings an “intelligence, strategic analysis” lens to the COVID19 problem and posits that “none of us knows for sure what the virus will do tomorrow”.

covid virus

We still do not know with absolute certainty where COVID-19 comes from.

“This virus repeatedly defies rational predictions and empirical deductions based on cumulative experience with earlier viruses like Ebola, HIV and SARS.

“None of us knows for sure what the virus will do tomorrow. Experts predicted the virus would disappear over the summer and return over the fall and winter months. Instead, in some parts of the world, including the United States, the number of active cases has erupted. COVID-19 was also not supposed to spread so easily among youth; turns out it does, yet its severity among youth is so negligible that they don’t take it seriously. This renders it all the more difficult to prevent the virus from spreading.

“We still do not know with absolute certainty where COVID-19 comes from. An animal? (Which animal?) Was it an accidental leak from a laboratory? Experts are still arguing over the manner in which the virus becomes airborne: Big aerosol droplets, little aerosol droplets, or both? How far do they really “fly”? To which surfaces does COVID-19 stick, and for how long?

“In other words, half a year into this pandemic, we still do not know exactly where and why COVID-19 is likely to thrive or die, and how it is transmitted.

“Do those who recover from the virus have long-term immunity? Short-term immunity? Can they still transmit the virus? Ask again in five years when they are retested. Right now we do not know, and this is deeply disturbing.

“Meanwhile, we are deluged with predictions regarding the nature of our lives in the post-virus era. Distance learning? Virtual work? Masses demanding to leave heavily-populated areas? De-globalization? Ten years of recession? More expensive air travel? Radical shifts toward more authoritarian governance?

“All these questions are speculative, and no one really knows the answers. Two years from now we might be back to business as usual – or not.

“This, too, is extremely unsettling. Here is perhaps the most worrisome aspect of the COVID-19 conundrum: We tell ourselves that until there is an effective vaccine made available for universal use, this virus has to be understood as a very clever and dangerous enemy. Once this vaccine has been mass-produced and distributed globally, however, we can certainly go back to normal.

“But what if it proves impossible to create a viable vaccine with long-lasting effects? What if there is no post-virus era? What if science is beaten by COVID-19 and our only recourse is a radical and permanent revision of our way of life? Is our absolute confidence in the emergence of an effective inoculation any more justified than some of our earlier mistaken assumptions regarding this virus?

“In intelligence terms, we simply don’t know.”

Excerpted from an opinion piece by Yossi Alpher, Globe and Mail

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