As I predicted then…
Death has become normal.
Care homes are far emptier as people die.
The top, age wise layer is being sliced off.
Wealth is being redistributed.
Big Pharma is in a panic.. repurposing existing drugs to try to fight Covid 19, knowing that otherwise loads of sick will die far too fast, depriving them of their huge incomes from drugs that overprolong the lives of the sick.
Some countries have largely ignored Corona, like Sweden, opting to maintain their economic prosperity. The countries that have locked down ( In varying degrees ) have suffered huge financial mal effects. Those countries will soon be told to resume commercial activities in order to limit huge unemployment. With huge unemployment comes social unrest and increased crime through poverty. That will be most evident in America, which has seen millions become suddenly jobless.
The European Union may well disintegrate, as those economies that have ‘ survived’ won’t want to prop up the ones that have collapsed. Notice that their have been no ‘ European standards for dealing with COVID 19 ‘. It’s been every country for itself – just as it’s been for centuries.
National health services have become ever so valued, at least for now, as have those services looked down upon, like cleaners, delivery drivers and carers. It won’t however make them any better paid going forward. Chance would be a fine thing. They’ll soon to relegated to unimportant, you’ll see.
Going forward, the unhealthy will continue to die, and people will realise the association between being physically healthy and not being so vulnerable to infectious diseases.
However, in this crisis there will have been an increase in food and alcohol consumption in the West, along with a reduction in exercise, with people therefore becoming more unhealthy and in doing so becoming more vulnerable. Because large sections of society are just too lazy and too gluttonous, they will opt to just hang on for a vaccine rather than behave in a manner that will increase their chances of living. Most people still think it is something that they just won’t catch and won’t have to deal with. However as restrictions are lifted, it’ll spread wildly again, until everyone has contracted it.
Because hospital capacity in the developed countries has been increased hugely, the affected will have somewhere to go at least, but the ‘ 1 in 3 that die once in hospital ‘ stat will continue, and millions will die unless that vaccine is found.
The virus will mutate and people will catch it again, with the vulnerable perhaps not surviving it next time around.
In the Third World there MAY be mass death, but perhaps it won’t be so dramatic, since in poverty the sick and old will have already died, leaving the most robust, who aren’t vulnerable anyway. In the Third World there are not loads of fat people, lots of hypertensive people, and lots of chronically sick. There’s not enough food to be obese and have high blood pressure, and there aren’t health systems to keep the people alive to allow long term sickness. The Third World won’t lock down because they don’t have enough money to have the luxury of not working for months. It’s the developed countries that will suffer most. They have sacrificed their economic prosperity in the pursuit of saving the old. That’s admirable, but there are dire consequences. Businesses will fold, there’ll be mass unemployment, property prices will fall dramatically, and the Chinese will swoop in to mop up the cheap businesses and property. We will become far more dependent on them than we can ever have predicted. The conspiracy theorists will say it was all planned, obviously. Interracial tension will increase, at the same time that we become dependent on them.
Let’s hope the Government here learns.
1. Plan for pandemics.
2. Build Manufacturing plants that make our own PPE.
3. Use the ingenuity of our own people to adapt their existing skills to make machines that we need, like respirators made by vacuum cleaner manufacturers.
Businesses have learned that using planes and cars to get people together in meetings isn’t essential. Air travel will shrink significantly as business will have adapted already. Home working will become the norm and pollution from travel will decrease. The environment will benefit from that, as well as from a decreased population. Tourism has almost stopped altogether, for now, but will resume to most countries, who will know that the visitors may well be infectious. That will matter little though, since the virus is everywhere, in every country. Trying to contain it is fruitless, unless you have population controls like China is capable of.
Only populations without civil liberties will obey government orders, and only Regime style governments will issue rules that can contain a contagious virus pandemic.
