The mutating virus is in an evolutionary race with politicians and public health authorities. How long did it take them to win the Cold War or War on Terror again?
“January of 2021 was the deadliest month we’ve had. We lost over 100,000 — 100,000 of our fellow citizens. We’re on track to cross 500,000 dead Americans this next month,” he said.
“The new strains emerging create immense challenges, and masking is still the easiest thing to do to save lives. But we need everyone to mask up.
The coronavirus may become the world order’s Vietnam. Although the pandemic may resolve itself quickly, new mutant strains may outpace vaccine distribution especially in the Third World. I had the opportunity to sit in on a 20+ person Zoom meeting with relatively prominent people from the Philippines and even the doctors had seen nothing of vaccines except rumors.
The government’s plan is apparently to let private companies import vaccines for their employees and dependents through nominated channels on condition they administer one government vaccine for every private jab they give. Meanwhile the coronavirus cases though held down by the tropical sunlight and youthful population is wreaking havoc on people and the economy.
One particularly moving story involved a Zoom participant’s secretary, whose taxi driver husband infected the whole family including the secretary. When her condition worsened the employer advised the family to take her to the hospital giving them her entire earned lump sum retirement for expenses — some $10,000 — a princely sum in that neck of the woods. She died despite antivirals 2 weeks later having run up a bill of $20,000.
This is probably broadly representative of the situation in much of the Third World. Biden probably realizes that unless he is very lucky the world will be struggling with infected regions into 2022 and beyond. There will be no more talk of awarding Emmys to Democratic governors and pretending that driving Donald Trump out of the White House will bring a sudden change of fortunes. If the cavalry comes it will be slowly. The elites have underestimated the pandemic even while buying into their own propaganda.
If the pandemic drags on the weariness will grow, the pinch of the lockdowns will tighten and the promises will begin to look hollow. That could spell trouble. Without the Orange Man to blame, Covid-19 whose origins they are not even willing to trace wherever it might lead, will gradually consume the Biden presidency, devour the world order’s resources and pose unforeseeable challenges to a political system that is beginning to realize it is not in control of events. The danger is that with enough time the penultimate year of Trump’s presidency will become the Good Old Days.
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