Is our current social isolation proving to be a gateway to discovering inner creativity and invention? Every situation we face has ups and downs. The current global pandemic is easy to see in a negative light. There is, however, a yet-to-appreciate positive that may yield society many new benefits.
It is rare that a single event brings the entire world to a standstill. In fact, I know of no event in recent history to compare with the COVID-19 pandemic and the reaction to it by world governments. Not since the last mass extinction when a very large rock struck our Earth at the end of the Cretaceous, circa 65 million years ago, has the world shuddered to a stop. And all over the tiniest of creatures to ever evolve on our planet.
Today, most of us remain in isolation, and in that isolation we are being given an opportunity for freeing up our creative minds. Our brains are being unlocked from the humdrum routine of our daily work lives and out of this humanity will bear new fruit.
When the plague swept through London in 1592, 1603, and 1606, the theatres where William Shakespeare earned his keep closed. During that downtime Shakespeare turned out some of his most inspiring works including the epic poem Venus and Adonis, and three of his greatest tragedies King Lear, Macbeth, and Antony & Cleopatra. For Shakespeare, the disruption and loss of income was metal for his inspiration. I am sure he wasn’t alone in finding a positive outcome to a series of negative events.
Of course, literature isn’t the route to innovation. The Spanish Flu which began as early as 1915 but wasn’t recognized as a world pandemic until 1918, subsequently lingering through multiple waves into 1920, sparked a new approach to public health that focused on the underlying causes of illness, for example, diet and living conditions, and led to the first concerted global effort to develop an effective vaccine. The flu infected an estimated 500 million people, a third of the world’s population at the time. It killed 10% of them.
The seeds of modern medical research and discovery were planted during the Spanish Flu. Germ theory and treatment rapidly evolved to help us begin to overcome some of the worst diseases inflicted upon us by nature. Today, it is the COVID-19 pandemic, the closest parallel to the Spanish Flu, that is changing human responses in ways we would never have suspected just four months ago. For example, companies making alcohol spirits stopped production to turn to manufacturing hand sanitizers. Universities turned classrooms into experimental manufacturers of ventilators that cost hundreds rather than thousands of dollars. When an Italian hospital ran out of ventilators, a local 3D-printing company, Isinnova, began manufacturing 3D-printed adapters for ventilators for one dollar per unit, 1/10,000th the price if purchased from the manufacturer.
The challenges we face when given lemons is to make lemonade, or something even better. Innovations coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic are likely to lead to positive global changes. Whether it be new policies, new medical resources, new art, or literature, something new will come from our present adversity. So what are you spending your social distancing time doing?
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The Liberian government cannot handle the case load and no longer can contain and isolate those who have been exposed or become infected. Medical staff are getting infected and others are abandoning their post leaving patients to starve. There is only one doctor per 100,000 population so many who get infected are not even reported and they in turn infect others.
In Monrovia, the capital, there is a need for 1,000 beds for Ebola patients with only a quarter of those available. Unchecked the disease may victimize the entire country because institutions and government will be so overwhelmed the nation may fall apart.
Virology researchers are speculating that the virus could soon erupt throughout Africa because of the continent’s explosive population growth. The 19 previous outbreaks of this disease over the past 40 years have never had a better potential feeding ground. The rapid move to urbanization could give Ebola whole new urban populations to attack. African cities like Lagos, Nairobi, Kinshasa, Mogadishu, Johannesburg, and Cape Town could all be at risk. Just one traveler from the infected areas could reap havoc in the shantytowns and informal settlements of these cities with their lack of infrastructure, clean water, proper sanitation and health services.
And then there is the other frightening scenario. Ebola, a virus that only spreads through close contact could go airborne. The current levels of transmission are giving the virus lots of evolutionary opportunities with each new infection presenting viral loads in the trillions. Evolutionary mutations like those kinds of numbers. And that could soon mean an airborne mutation. That risk is real if the World Health Organization and the sophisticated medical world doesn’t check this current outbreak.
For now Liberia, the country, and its citizens, along with its immediate neighbours in West Africa, are in grave danger. This should be where the disease gets stopped. The United Nations is the logical place to put together a crisis strategy focused on ending the epidemic. I know many are trying but this must be kicked up the priority list or the 20,000 victim forecast may soon rise to 100,000 or more.
