The tutelage of a pandemic

“...a land of nightmares” – Ray Bradbury (The Dragon)

The pandemic should also make us rethink the notion of security. As the virus continues to reap its grim harvest, it is becoming obvious that true national and global security lies not in sophisticated weapons or repressive laws, but in robust public health and education systems. If we fail to learn this lesson at least now, we will be even more unprepared and vulnerable, when the next pandemic comes calling – Pic by Shehan Gunasekara

By Tisaranee Gunasekara

Pandemics are times of learning. Arguably the most inescapable lesson of the ongoing pandemic is the importance of investing in public health. If we in Sri Lanka escape this calamity without too high a human cost, it would be thanks, first and foremost, to our free health system. Underfunded and neglected by successive governments, plagued by inadequacies and inefficiencies, public health system remains our sole salvation in this hour of crisis. 

Pandemics are also times for reflection. Those who complain about the cost and inherent inefficiencies of universal free health care should at least now consider what our common plight would have been if we had to face this situation without that facility. The conduct of private hospitals up to this point demonstrates a total absence of not just a sense of fellowship, compassion and decency, but also enlightened self-interest. The pandemic has demonstrated its total contempt to divisions so dear to us by not sparing the rich and the powerful; yet Sri Lanka’s private health care system remains blindly, suicidally enslaved to mammon.

In early March, as the country slipped into the grip of the pandemic, two private hospitals began to do COVID-19 testing at the whopping price of Rs. 17,000. The intervention of the Government has forced the price to come down to Rs. 5,000, but even that is beyond the capacity of most Lankans. If free healthcare didn’t exist, the poor and even a segment of the middle class would have had to go without being tested, thereby increasing the risk of infection for everyone, including the rich.

None of the private hospitals have offered their services in the battle against the pandemic, so far. No free or even subsidised testing, no offering of their facilities for the afflicted. The lesson is obvious – investing in public health is not a waste or a luxury, but an absolute necessity, a matter of life and death, literally. 

The pandemic should also make us rethink the notion of security. As the virus continues to reap its grim harvest, it is becoming obvious that true national and global security lies not in sophisticated weapons or repressive laws, but in robust public health and education systems. If we fail to learn this lesson at least now, we will be even more unprepared and vulnerable, when the next pandemic comes calling.

Viruses breed in darkness

When a butterfly flaps its lacy wings in one part of the world, it might create a hurricane in the opposite side of the globe – or it might not. But the recondite dietary habits of some Wuhan residents did pave the way to a global pandemic, shutting down the world from end to end. A tale of science fiction has become our lived in reality.  

Epidemics and pandemics are nothing new to humankind. The first recorded one, the Antonine Pandemic of 165-180 CE, is believed to have killed five million people. The misnamed Asian Flu of 1956-58 (it was birthed in China and did not spread to most of the rest of Asia) killed around two million, while the Hong Kong Flu of 1968-69 caused around a million deaths. But none of these epidemics cast its deadly shadow on the entirety of the world. While pestilence heaped death and devastation on one part of the world, the rest of humanity went about their normal lives. 

COVID-19 is thus a decisive turning point, the beginning of a devastating new. This is the first truly global pandemic. If we needed a reminder of our common humanity, the pandemic has given it to us. We might label ourselves according to race and religion, gender and class, caste and tribe. But to the virus, we are just human, nothing but human. 

In the battle against the virus, the main heroes are the doctors and medical workers of every variety who are risking their lives to save the rest of us.

It was no accident that one of the first medical professionals to be cut down by the virus also happened to be a doctor who sounded a warning bell about the coming contagion. Chinese ophthalmologist Li Wengliang posted the warning about a new SARS-like virus on 30 December. Two days later, on 1 January, he was accused of making comments “that were not factual and broke the law” and acting in a manner that “severely disturbed the public order,” by the Wuhan Public Security Bureau. The other seven doctors too were saddled with similar charges, and forced into silence. 

As the first whistleblower, Ai Fen, director of emergency at the Wuhan Central Hospital, revealed recently in an interview (which has since been taken down presumably by China’s internet police), her hospital even banned the staff from wearing protective gear in treating patients affected by the new virus. What makes this conduct particularly reprehensible was that it was not motivated by genuine ignorance. 

"In Sri Lanka, the Government’s relief package is a step in the right direction. But to make many of these measures a reality, money is needed. Since having an election in the current situation will be nothing less than suicidal, the only way out is to rescind the gazette dissolving the Parliament. The resultant restoration of the status quo ante will enable the Government to obtain the funds necessary to keep the country going while fighting the pandemic. Constitutionally, the election need not be held till November, if the old Parliament is restored. That is a necessary step, not just to obtain the finances but also to effect a political ceasefire. The Government and the Opposition must work together to face the pandemic and to lay the necessary basis for the aftermath. This is not the time for grandstanding, self-aggrandisement or puerile fights"

On 31 December, Wuhan health authorities closed down the wild animal market which is believed to be one of the first vectors of the virus; on the same day China informed the WHO about the existence of an unknown illness. The authorities knew about the virus and did everything they could to keep their own people in ignorance, thereby rendering them vulnerable. Had Beijing warned the people of China and the world about the new virus on the same day it informed the WHO, the pandemic might not have happened.

Dr. Li would contact the virus from a patient he was treating on January 7th and died on 7 February. Had authorities permitted protective gear in Wuhan hospitals early on, his life might have been saved. Making a statement on his deathbed, Dr. Li reminded his country’s leaders and the rest of the world that a healthy society should not have just one voice. In an open letter to the National Peoples’ Congress, a group of Chinese academics pointed out how this suppression of information enabled the virus to make its great leap within China and beyond. 

Had China been a free and open society, it would not have been possible for the leaders to silence the doctors who detected the virus in December 2019 and sounded the alarm. This is one of the key takeaways from the pandemic, the danger of politics trumping over science, of the forced silencing of experts to suit the power needs of politicians. Chinese leaders behaved in an identical manner during the onset of the SARS epidemic as well, though the cover-up lasted longer that time. The ongoing attempts by Beijing to rewrite the genesis of the pandemic (Xinhua has announced that a book on how president Xi Jinping defeated the virus will be published shortly) demonstrate that if there is a next time, then too the authorities might waster precious days and weeks, placing their own political needs above the wellbeing of their own people. 

If absence of freedom formed the foundation of the pandemic, the walls were built by an equally devastating absence of intelligence, especially on the part of political leaders. While the Chinese leaders tried to hide the existence of the virus, many of the world leaders laughed at it, dismissing it as negligible. Donald Trump compared it to common flu and said that it will vanish soon. So did one of his arch enemies, the Supreme Leader of Iran. In Italy leaders asked people not to change their habits. The president of the Philippines said everything was well and there was nothing to be scared of while President Bolsonaro of Brazil called the outbreak a fantasy and accused the liberal media of exaggeration. 

In Sri Lanka, the Government responded sensibly when the first case was discovered. Once no new cases came to light and the first patient recovered, a sense of triumphalism and complacency intruded. The Parliament was dissolved. The governing party’s attention was absorbed by the desire to win a two-thirds majority while the main opposition party busied itself with a debilitating schism. No one paid heed to the trajectory of the virus, and how it could affect us given our reliance on tourism, and the existence of a massive Lankan diaspora. Checking new arrivals into the country was largely abandoned. The Tourist Board even put out an ad, touting Sri Lanka as a haven from the virus. Steps were not taken to quarantine those Lankans returning from the new epicentres of the virus, especially Italy. It was only after Italy’s cases overshot the 10,000 mark that quarantine measures were initiated in Sri Lanka. 

Leaders who ignore science in favour of political, economic or religious considerations, people who ignore science in favour of blind belief in supernatural or a false sense of exclusive immunity, become the unconscious allies of pestilence. If COVID-19 helps us to learn at least that one lesson, our common future might be less dangerous than the present.

What comes after

The Second World War was a direct result of the mishandling of the aftermath of the First World War. A third world war didn’t happen, because victors of the second war made a conscious effort not to repeat the mistakes of the victors of the first war.

That past could be relevant when planning for post-pandemic times.

History shows that the aftermaths of pandemics are often characterised by violent political and societal upheavals. The aftermaths of the Black Death, for instance, saw the birth of witch-hunting and a massive hike in the persecution of Jews. Pandemics are, after all, not normal times, and abnormalities of all sorts are likely to devastate their epilogues if remedial measures are not devised and implemented.

According to some analysts, China’s first quarter GDP growth is likely to go down to the levels that prevailed in the immediate aftermath of the Cultural Revolution. The US Treasury Secretary has warned that the country’s unemployment rate could hit 20%. These two prognostications hint at the kind of socio-economic wasteland that may descend on the world once the pandemic is over. 

"Leaders who ignore science in favour of political, economic or religious considerations, people who ignore science in favour of blind belief in supernatural or a false sense of exclusive immunity, become the unconscious allies of pestilence. If COVID-19 helps us to learn at least that one lesson, our common future might be less dangerous than the present"

Giovanni Boccaccio wrote The Decameron about and in response to the Black Death of 1348. He begins the book with the following words: “To take pity on people in distress is a human quality which every man and woman should possess...” Those words would be relevant in planning for life after COVID-19. 

Though the pandemic is not sparing the rich and the powerful (including royalty) it will have a disproportionately higher impact on the poor and the powerless. That is why any economic response to the situation will have to prioritise the existential needs of the more vulnerable sections of any society. 

In Sri Lanka, the Government’s relief package is a step in the right direction. But to make many of these measures a reality, money is needed. Since having an election in the current situation will be nothing less than suicidal, the only way out is to rescind the gazette dissolving the Parliament. The resultant restoration of the status quo ante will enable the Government to obtain the funds necessary to keep the country going while fighting the pandemic. 

Constitutionally, the election need not be held till November, if the old Parliament is restored. That is a necessary step, not just to obtain the finances but also to effect a political ceasefire. The Government and the Opposition must work together to face the pandemic and to lay the necessary basis for the aftermath. This is not the time for grandstanding, self-aggrandisement or puerile fights. 

However sensible national governments are, both the pandemic and its aftermath would be impossible to handle without multilateral and global cooperation. The IMF, the World Bank and other international financial institutions have to set up funds to help countries, especially in the Third World, avoid socio-economic meltdowns in the aftermath of the pandemic. 

Putting up barriers between and within countries is a necessary measure to slow the velocity of the virus. But a successful response will have to be an international one in the main. Whether it is developing a cure for the virus or handling the devastating aftermath of the pandemic, the work will have be international. If the virus survives even in the remotest part of the globe, in the poorest hamlet, it will render the rest of the world unsafe. No country will be safe until every country is safe. 

During the life of the pandemic, and in its aftermath, solidarity will be not just a desirable virtue but also an unavoidable necessity. Cuba sending a group of doctors and health workers to Italy rather than Donald Trump trying to purchase the exclusive ownership of a future vaccine is the way forward out of this nightmare.