The virus that came from China (it sounds like an Isaac Asimov story, but unfortunately it's not)

The Virus That Came From China (It sounds like an Isaac Asimov story, but unfortunately it's not)

Monday, March 16, 2020

This month, a virus that came from China turned the world upside down and turned our lives into a living hell.

It seems like we're in a science fiction movie, one of those where a being appears that destroys humanity in an instant. The hero who will solve the problem and overcome the forces of evil hasn't appeared yet. Germans, Americans, Chinese, and Israelis are competing to see who will be the hero the fastest, the one who discovers the miraculous vaccine that will kill the virus. Until then, the world is living a true nightmare, with unpredictable consequences. No one can say for sure how long this drama will last, but, in principle, we are all convinced that humanity will survive and that, at the latest, in a year everything will have returned to normal.

But will the world be the same after this? Another unknown.

It may be yes, it may be no. Unfortunately, history shows us that we don't always learn from the lessons of the past and systematically fall into the same errors, as if we hadn't experienced them before. A paradigmatic example of this contradiction is Europe's inability to define a common strategy when faced with calamities. This was the case in the First World War, in the Second, in the Balkan Wars, in the resolution of the immigrant problem, and is happening again in the coronavirus war (not to mention going further back in time).

Meanwhile, economic and social chaos reigns, thousands of people end up unemployed, many others die because there were no means to help them, many companies go bankrupt, and everything returns to square one, in a colossal effort and suffering for thousands of families. And whose fault is it? In this case, it seems to be the virus that came from China, but it is also, above all, the political inability to find joint solutions that protect humanity. We literally live in a world of every man for himself!

Rosário Louro

Director-General