Post 75: #Coronavirus and a global perspective.

Today’s topic: If you were ________, how would you have handled the pandemic?

We’re sharing our experiences, thoughts, and uncensored opinions during lockdown, quarantine, and self-isolation. For some of us, it’s DAY 75.

Blindfold or Mouth Gag?

RJD, #Beirut, #Lebanon

Oh, how this pandemic has shown the true colors of many people around the world, be they leaders, politicians, corporate thieves, humanitarians, educators, first responders, medical staff, or simple normal people.

In hindsight, it is always easy to criticize and claim there was a better way to do things. But when one is in a massively difficult decision-making position, weighing all the options and visualizing all the scenarios is awfully difficult.

Unless you are the Idiot in Chief and you are more worried about your Twitter image than displaying true leadership. So, if I were the President of the United States —a country I love and miss terribly—I would have done 8 things:

  1. Listened to the warnings coming out of China in December and begun a real assessment of where this might lead my country and acted on it.
  2. Hired a team of experts to take over the daily management of the Pandemic, giving them total autonomy and authority to act as needed for the greater good.
  3. Closed the borders immediately, but also would have opened refugee camps for those who have nowhere to go.
  4. Teamed up with international leaders to create a policy that will save the fragile economies worldwide.
  5. Supported the World Health Organization more than usual so that they can manage the chaos and give better guidance.
  6. I would not have used the Pandemic as a campaigning platform to toot my own horn.
  7. I would not accuse others of my wrongdoings.
  8. I would have worn a mask.
Retrieved from boredpanda.com

If I were Any World Leader Today…

Charlie, Metro #Washington, DC

I think this is the first of many pandemics and today’s world leaders need to start making plans for living in a Pandemic World.

Why do I think we’re going to be binge-experiencing pandemics? Several possible reasons. One, years of covering the news taught me that events come in clusters. There was a time when plane hijackings were regular news fodder. Don’t hear about those much anymore. 9/11 brought on a spate of smaller terrorist attacks. Not so much of that happening now, except if you live in the Middle East, of course. Mass shootings? If there are any, the news isn’t covering them. Now we’ve got a pandemic. If news history repeats itself, we’ve got a few more lockdowns ahead of us.

But it’s more than history repeating itself that says world leaders need to have national and international plans for dealing with rogue viruses. Personally, I think bioterrorists and bioterrorist nations are seeing just how unprepared the world is for dealing with a pandemic—whether a pandemic created by Mother Nature, who thinks the human species needs to be brought down a peg or two for its cavalier attitude towards her; or by certain countries flexing their power; or by a consortium of individuals who stand to profit from the demise of our current economic system.

World leaders and their publics—i.e., us—need to get ready for a new world plagued by plagues. This particular pandemic may be over soon, but there are going to be more. And next time we may be battling more than one or two simultaneously. There won’t be enough labs in the world to create all the vaccines we need.

My personal solution…I’m going to start eating some dirt. Build up my body’s immune system. No more pampering my body with gluten-avoidance. Being a GMO fraidy-cat. So precious with myself I can only eat organic. No. I want a body that can take on all comers. I want a body that will make any virus say “calf rope” when it tries to infect me. (“Calf rope,” BTW, is Texan for, “I give up.”)

If I Were the #Coronavirus

RafifJ, #Malaga, #Spain

Heh, heh, I sure showed you, world! I bet you wish you hadn’t taken so much for granted! You thought it was normal to slaughter animals in the open-air markets…you thought it was normal to live your lives of privilege without a care for the environment or your fellow humans. You thought you were immune to everything.

Well, I brought you to your knees! I brought your world economies, your health care systems, and your stock markets to a standstill. I defeated your fake power structures; I exposed your false social narratives. My crown trumps – with a lower-case t – your missiles any day.

And I’ll be back. Even if you find a vaccine, I’ll be back, and stronger. You know why? Because I’ve been studying you humans for millennia. I’ve learned that you don’t learn. Your leaders are simultaneously empty suits and full of hot air. Mask, no mask; gloves, no gloves; social distancing or not. Go ahead and hug, gather, and claim to love each other in your houses of worship. I’ve exposed so many of you for what you are, you bigots; I’ve made you show your true colors, you racists. I see you going back to your “normal,” selfish behavior; your manmade borders, your enslavement of others, your xenophobia. I see that disregard for human life – unless it’s feeding your agenda and coffers – is part of your holy grail.

I’m the great equalizer: poor, downtrodden versus rich and famous; I’ll strike you at my will. I’ve proven that all you claim to stand for is nothing when confronted with my thorny crown. Your willingness to destroy everything around you for the sake of a few bright, shiny coins makes me stronger. Your own false sense of power makes me, Corona, invincible.

And so I’ll strike again. And again.

Photo by Mick Haupt. Retrieved from unsplash.com.

If I Were a Leader…

Tina F., Fairfax, #Virginia

If I were able to be anyone I wanted, I probably would pick the person who could have nipped this pandemic in the bud at its onset, China’s President Xi Jinping. The Chinese government is no stranger to flu pandemics, having experienced three in the last decade alone.

I finally understand why the Asian population has been wearing masks in all public places for the past few years. They know how quickly these flu symptoms spread and are not taking chances. Now the whole world is following suit.

So if I were the Chinese President, I would have responded immediately. As soon the first reports emerged from the hospitals indicating a surge of flu-related admissions, I would have isolated those patients and immediately contacted the World Health Organization.

I would not have delayed the announcement, nor would I have imprisoned doctors raising alarms for “rumor mongering.”

Photo of Dr. Li Wenliang, whistleblower. RIP.
Retrieved from abc.net.au

Actually, if I were the president of any country, I would emanate confidence in my government and my citizens. There is so much ambiguity when it comes to the truth. We must lean on the experts and consider what they have to say. If people are afraid to speak up because they may be fired or imprisoned, then there is a problem in the system. Knowing what we know now, there should be no excuses about a straightforward handling of any epidemic/pandemic.

But in all fairness, if I were the president of China, I would also remind the world that our final death toll was approximately 4,630 to our population of 1.4 billion.

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