Sometimes pandemics arrive on their own, like the deadly flu pandemic of 1918. Yet for years now scientists have warned that rising temperatures caused by man-made climate change are causing shifts in animal populations, putting them in closer proximity to our burgeoning human populations, making new pandemics inevitable. Yet we do nothing. Actually, less than nothing, as we see by the recent disbanding of a pandemic task force.
Last week, the New York Times revealed the existence of an October 2019 government report proving our leaders were “aware of the potential for a respiratory virus outbreak originating in China to spread quickly to the United States and overwhelm the nation.”
Yet, once again, we did nothing. But this time, Mother Nature finally lost her patience and now COVID-19 is coming for us.
We will get through this, perhaps at a heavy cost. But hopefully, on the positive side, we will learn to be humble and respect our limits. Perhaps we will come to understand that we are mere mortals, not gods. Just another species, among a staggering number, all interdependent, all reliant on each other for our common survival and the health of our community.