Read on Twitter
This is a note-to-self recap thread about some things I’ve learnt in the past month by reading (mostly specialists’ twitter accounts) about #coronavirus (-es) and related illness-es, and in particular about #covid_19:
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1) Though is easier (&cheaper) and overall better to research and develop vaccines and effective treatments not at times of full-blown crisis, we’ve done very little in the past 15 years to prevent what is happening now,
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despite very well knowing that on our increasingly populated and interconnected planet epidemics & pandemics will become more frequent (and potentially more deadly).
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2) One of the main problems with planning long-term research about potential epidemic/pandemic threats - I gathered - is precisely that it requires long-term planning, hence a reasonable level of political stability and overall consistence in setting goals
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and organising their time-scaled completion.
But this, of course, is not so easy to achieve in the midst of the turbulent and very short political shell-life of governments expressed by democracies;
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But this, of course, is not so easy to achieve in the midst of the turbulent and very short political shell-life of governments expressed by democracies;
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3) Hence a paradox: ‘stable’ authoritarian states seem to be better equipped to organise an effective quick response to the kind of emergency we are currently experiencing than the EU or the US, where the wealthiest, best-resourced, best-staffed and overall best (?)
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healthcare systems in the world currently operate (I’m out on a limb here, happy to be corrected).
4) Obviously, the “effective quick response” might not in fact be acceptable or even conceivable in a democracy, because it might not reach the minimum standards of safety,
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4) Obviously, the “effective quick response” might not in fact be acceptable or even conceivable in a democracy, because it might not reach the minimum standards of safety,
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legality, fairness and human life dignity that are deemed by most of us as the core reason for which democracies - though far from perfect solutions to the problem of human communal living - are worth establishing and protecting in the first place.
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5) In the case of the present emergency, I (as a total layman) have tried to monitor from early on the spread of this disease, & to understand its medical implications and its medical & non-medical ramifications. I knew nothing about epidemics & pandemics before,
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and I thought this was a good time to learn something.
6) The same thing - I’d hope - should become apparent to everyone: we all need to learn about this issue, and to stay aware of what we’ll have learnt even after the emergency will have passed
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6) The same thing - I’d hope - should become apparent to everyone: we all need to learn about this issue, and to stay aware of what we’ll have learnt even after the emergency will have passed
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(because it’ll happen again many times, and it could get worse).
We need to take it into account in our daily social life, when we choose what to spend our money on & how to invest, what to love& allow ourselves to get used to, how to do activism & how to vote, what to study,
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We need to take it into account in our daily social life, when we choose what to spend our money on & how to invest, what to love& allow ourselves to get used to, how to do activism & how to vote, what to study,
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to which experts we should listen to in the time of a crisis, and how to ensure that those experts will still be around for the next one, and that they will still be knowledgeable, competent, and able to access relevant information and resources.
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7) This means - for me - that we need to think much more organically about how to protect ON EVERY LEVEL our universities, schools, healthcare systems, our green research and standards, the way we produce, store and access data, and of course
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how best to protect & strive to expand the openness & fairness of our political systems and institutions: not of course by ‘exporting democracy’, but -at least for EU countries- by working much harder than we do now on building a more solid & long-lasting intra-EU consensus,
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&even more common protocols, schemes & political and social welfare institutions. And -as soon as possible- by federating.
8) I am an European federalist,and I am very, very sad about the pitifully slow and chaotic response that the EU is providing to the #Covid_19 emergency.
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8) I am an European federalist,and I am very, very sad about the pitifully slow and chaotic response that the EU is providing to the #Covid_19 emergency.
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The EU should have acted as one since the very beginning: by standardising the management of traffic through the external borders and the monitoring and medical response to the clearly foreseeable emergence of cases through internal traffic, and by overseeing and directing
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an Europe-wide collection of all relevant medical data.
9) Instead, the EU has wasted what could have been a precious chance to show what a unified (ideally federal) Europe could accomplish, how much and how well it could better individual and collective life
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9) Instead, the EU has wasted what could have been a precious chance to show what a unified (ideally federal) Europe could accomplish, how much and how well it could better individual and collective life
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both within Europe & elsewhere in a way that is mindful of its past imperial, dictatorial & genocidal horrors and that is tailored not only not to repeat them, but to never risk them again, & to add to that an even more serious commitment to protect human life on our planet.
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10) The EU has not risen to the occasion this time, but I’m still hoping that it might soon (if not to deal with this emergency, then to deal with the next one). But in order for this to happen we Europeans all have to take both individual and collective responsibility for it:
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we have to learn, to think carefully, to mobilise, to radicalise for it. We need to remember constantly that the fight to save our planet and the fight to save ourselves on it is one & the same, and that it is not only a matter for ‘green politics’, but that we must all
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take part in it, and that we need to create & protect political and civic institutions that will make it stable, pervasive, powerful, and fair.
11) Now I’ll stop posting intensively on #Covid_19 I guess, & resume my usual ‘mode’ (a changed-for-the-better one though, I hope).
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11) Now I’ll stop posting intensively on #Covid_19 I guess, & resume my usual ‘mode’ (a changed-for-the-better one though, I hope).
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