I am interested in examining not what has been done or not done to tackle the Covid-19 threat, but what its consequences might be – apart f...
I am interested in examining not what has been done or not done to tackle the Covid-19 threat, but what its consequences might be – apart from the immediate one, which is the tragic loss of lives and livelihoods.
One of the long-term consequences of the pandemic was visible right from the start when strongly racist remarks were made about the Chinese on social media, and in some cases Chinese people were beaten up or threatened. The fact that this particular outbreak occurred in China was used to sneer at Chinese cultural and eating habits, despite the fact that the virus was passed on from live animals to humans. The only way to avoid a virus is to stay away from all animals (including humans), a possibility that surely was not in the mind of the genteel American lady who posted on her Facebook that she was a lover and keeper of cats and dogs, and simply loathed people who ate them.
For those of us who still read history, instead of concocting it, the reaction brought to mind the “invasion scare” fiction from the early 20th century, which often pictured hordes of Chinese, some infected, flooding into Europe or America. As it turns...
