I’m a futurist, a writer and a policy wonk. This means I look at things and re-look at
them, and then re-look at them, trying to figure out where we’re going, what’s
going to happen, what’s likely to happen and why. It’s not based on wish fulfillment so much as
past performance by society in similar instances, my observances and
experiences. And while I may take an
idea toward an extreme to prove a point the writer in me simply doesn’t let me
get too far.
In short, the facts rarely conform to our wishes and we need
to be open to explore them in order to either work through our acceptance of
them or determine what we can do to control them.
The example I give you is Star Trek and to a lesser degree
my Space Oddity Universe stories. In
both cases they’re futures predicated on the idea that tough times are ahead
but certain things we’re capable of may allow us to aim more towards a better
future rather than the dystopian one of our baser instincts.
The biggest idea in both series is the idea of
community. Not the “tend the garden” and
“put up a wall to protect” type of community, for that’s often represents the
worst part of humanity. I’m talking
about the reaching out and looking after each part of community.
It’s the concept of ‘Stone Soup’, an analogy where one
person brings a stone to make soup with and then every one else brings one item
they have, none of which individually can feed even the person who brings it
(pot, water, scraps of meat, a carrot, a potato, etc, etc, etc) until the
combination is not only soup but enough to feed everyone. Another term for this is the “Social
Contract” or to paraphrase John F Kennedy, “What you can do for the
whole, not what can be done for you”.
In short, ‘together we are better’.
And yes, that means all of us. The son of a Syrian refugee revolutionized
personal communication when he created Apple Computers and the grandson of a
German immigrant who ruined America
But I digress.
Just this century – and we’re only in the 20th
year of that – we’ve already had 7 major epidemics that were categorized as
“worldwide” events (SARS from 2002-2004; Mumps 2009; H1N1 “Swine Flu”
2009-2010; MERS 2012 onward; West Africa Ebola 2013-2016; Zika Virus 2015-2016
and Covid19) and this is not including the devastating 2017/2018 Influenza
Season in America which killed some 80 thousand people.
Very few of them began in “wet markets” but they all have
one thing in common, they began in and spread through concentrations of human
populations.
This decade the human population will surpass 8
BILLION. Even if Covid-19 kills the same
percentage of humans that the 1918 Influenza did (which is quite wrongly called
“Spanish Flu”) then this decade the human population will surpass 8 Billion.
And the more people we have the more likely we’ll be hit
with another and another and another pandemic.
Some will be mild (Zika); other’s devastating (Covid-19), but one thing
is certain, we haven’t seen the last of these things.
Many politicians have likened this to a war. Well, we’re sure not thinking of it like
that. Wars are to be avoided if possible
but if unavoidable then we need to ensure that our society is geared toward
it. One of the first things that happens
when war is declared is production of materials needed to fight it. The second is training of personnel. The third is mobilization and preparedness. The economy during war changes, often it
grows, and yes, people die.
If, as is likely, we’re just now becoming aware that we’re
in a war, and if we’re smart about our future, then we will pivot to a war
economy. Not a sheltering one, where
everything pauses while the NAZI’s bomb us, but like London one that takes
cover during each wave of the attack and then rises as soon as it’s over,
cleans up, rebuilds, buries our dead and prepares for the next round. And for the sacrifices needed to end it.
We will have to come to accept that there will be
casualties. But when you know there will
be more deaths you prepare for it. We
will need to prepare for mass deaths and we will need to rethink our healthcare
and how we will handle future breakouts to treat those afflicted in the hopes
of minimizing the death count. We will
need to build or convert warehouses to store what is needed and then convert
quickly to spaces ready to deal with it.
Our soldiers on this front line won’t wear khaki but scrubs,
they won’t be drafted but incentivized, they won’t train with bayonets but with
ventilators and when the next wave comes we won’t shutter up our industries but
soldier on.
We’ll have to.
Precautions will be taken, but casualties will come. We cannot pause an entire society for months
at a time over and over again and expect there to be anything akin to normal so
if the new normal is disruptive then we need to be prepared for that. If you know you’ll be navigating ice flows
during the thaw then you better figure out how to navigate that!
Security screening at both ends of a trip must include a
health component and the moment an area becomes infected then all travel from
it must be funnelled to controlled spaces where the returning people are
isolated to prevent spread. Clearly if
no outbreaks have occurred then these measures are not warranted, but the
moment there is even a whiff of one we must act decisively and proactively to
ensure that the monster is contained.
So what does that mean?
It could mean a hangar and warehouse are built at several major airports
across the country, over in the cargo sections with the sole purpose of sitting
largely and thankfully idle, so that the moment the W.H.O. spots an issue every
plane from it is routed to those hangars for secondary health screening. And that at the first sign of spread then
anyone from those areas isn’t just routed for screening but mandatory
isolation, as though they were already infected. Sort of like what New Zealand
And while such measures are invasive, and expensive, as it
would be in war, there’s an economy in that and we must embrace the new
normal.
