What I came to know due to the coronavirus
In the very beginning, I didn’t believe media outlets. And I thought there must be some conspiracy behind the outbreak of the coronavirus. It could be a leak from a lab which is making bioweapons or a deliberate scattering of a pharmaceutical company. Whatever it is, I didn’t care much about it. It might be because I have watched so many sci-fi movies or I might have no trust in media outlets, including politicians. I was curious why the virus originated in China but nowhere else. Is it an error of a person who is involved in China or someone else’s deliberate trial to leak from other countries? My imagination stretched without borders and I was not ready to accept the virus yet. Because it was an issue of China, I thought it should be a Chinese issue. And we are separated from each other, I thought, we would be safe if we control the border.
However, when the coronavirus made its appearance first in Korea, things changed. And when the 31st patient who was found as a super spreader appeared, everything was turned upside down. It became OUR problem and it reminded me of a few devastating accidents in the past.
We have lost 304 children in a terrible ferry accident in 2014. Back then, I was devastated by all kinds of disasters. There was no country to protect us and there was no media outlet to reveal the truth, there were no people to support the victims. Tons of people mourned the children’s unpurposed deaths, but it was not enough to prevent the conservative party from winning the election. Evils were rampant. I was shocked by the circumstances. One year later, there was the outbreak of MERS. Still, the government laid bare its incompetence. After all, the president was impeached after a while. We may realize urgently it is extremely crucial to have a working system during a crisis at that time.
From the very beginning, the South Korea government strived to defeat the virus with all of its heart. Testing, tracing and treating are considered as successful reasons why South Korea have responded to the virus in the midst of a pandemic. Above all, there were citizens to force the government to act urgently. There was no hoarding or panic buying, instead, there were three key things in Korea according to Yuval Harari, “extensive testing, honest reporting and the willing cooperation of a well-informed public.” Some say, it might be because of Asian culture which is obedient or less rebellious than other countries. However, Fukuyama said, praising Korea,
“The major dividing line in effective crisis response will not place autocracies on one side and democracies on the other. The crucial determinant in performance will not be the type of regime, but the state’s capacity and, above all, trust in government.”
It was proven in the April general election by a landslide. Two months ago, over 1M people signed up for his impeachment in the petition board of the Blue House because of his incompetence.
We have done it without any kind of lockdown
We respected the freedom of movement of people and made exceptions for those who needed to be contained. Even when the number of confirmed patients surged up to 900 per day, we didn’t block the Daegu province which was the epicenter of the outbreak. The super spreader was a member of a secret church sect and Daegu was the breeding ground of the church. However, no one asserted Daegu should set up a blockade. Instead, the government spurred to purvey more face masks with a rationing system and urged companies to produce more testing kits in advance before the peak. Intensive government intervention. Which is why we have not struggled with a shortage of masks or testing kits. We are now sending testing kits to 17 countries including the US and European countries. It is only possible by well preparedness.
The coronavirus is brand new and our understanding of it changes daily. We don’t yet know the full history of the emergence of Covid-19. But one thing that I know for sure is we are getting to know ourselves and the things that we knew ambiguously are getting clearer. We just thought tomorrow will come automatically whether it is better or even worse. There was no room for change to act. We were too vulnerable to resist the wave of neoliberalism. It was just okay consuming various contents on Youtube or connecting with others via Facebook or buying something on Amazon. We didn’t care whether the earth is getting hot or children are dying or Trump is screwing up.
Now the nightmare of horror movies has become the fatal reality. I think the coronavirus is not an event that occurred all of a sudden. Many scientists have warned us to prepare for the outbreak of the pandemic and they’ve asserted it is definitely associated with environmental destruction, climate change, factory farming, and population explosion. The ability to deal with the crisis is absolutely related with a state’s political and economical system. And the political system depends on the public’s capacity to hold them to account.
I admire French people who took back their power from Ancien Régime. I admire German people who rebuilt their country through reflection and regret of the war. I also do admire Korean people who shaped the country like this. There were so many dictators and self-serving politicians, still now, but we didn’t let them do as they wanted. We have defeated the trial of privatization of public sectors including the health care system.
Quite a long time, fiscal austerity and small government was the agenda of the developed countries like the USA, and the UK. And they have shown us how it is devastating before the crisis of the pandemic. “No one backs you up.” It was the buzzword of the time we got through the MERS in South Korea including the words deregulation and globalization. The government should exist for people not for their own profit. However, current capitalism insists the government should make a profit through a competitive system and individuals have been plunged into an infinite competitive market as a good.
The thing is that the disasters have continually set the stage for change whether it is better or not. The global flu epidemic of 1918 helped create national health service in many European countries and the second world war paved the way for the modern welfare state. After 9/11, a lot of public sectors were privatized to global companies and the public educational system in Louisiana was replaced by charter schools run by buyable vouchers after the Katrina hurricane. If we put our feet up, they will deprive all we have at any time and we will be put through hardship worse than ever. We should know what it is and what is going on. Yeah, you’re right, they took away our eyes and ears. It’s getting harder to get ‘true’ information from the internet including media outlets.
What should we do?
One thing is being scrutinized. Truth is not what we want to believe. If there is a conspiracy, there must be someone who will benefit from the conspiracy theories. If the theory is beneficial to someone else’s profit, we are likely to be taken advantage of for their purpose. We should ask ourselves constantly, what is it for?
America is putting an effort into turning all the blame onto China. They didn’t do the right thing that the government had to properly. They neither listen to the expert’s advice nor impose testing from early on. Trump is self-praising in the media briefing and he never takes responsibility. We should pull him down from his chair and let him not go for the election. The original disaster was the thing that he was elected as a president. He is the consequence of our internalized Trumps accumulated inside us. We didn’t care about anything but me.
The reason why I use the word “we”, is that we are all connected. Now, we are all connected in the network and transnational capitalism. The reason why Trump insists the ridiculous increase of defense costs in South Korea is also because he should pay for the expense of public sectors that are privatized. We should stop the crazy train running toward the destination which looks clearly like hell.
I remember the odd number. The number of those who have died from air pollution is over 110M per a year and the number of those who died less because of the shut down of factories in the midst of the pandemic was three times the death toll of COVID-19 in the same period in China. Which means that climate change and environmental destruction in daily life is more fatal than instant pandemic even though we don’t feel it. And as long as we don’t change our lifestyle and system, crisis will come whenever time’s up. That’s why I started thinking of being a vegan or at least reducing eating meat. If we overuse this planet, we will never get back to work because there won’t be a future remaining.
I took heart from some books and wordings during the self isolation. One of them was from Magaret Mead, she said,
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
One of the most moving moments I’ve got amid the coronavirus was when I watched the scene in which overseas Koreans in India delivered some food and goods to others spontaneously. They took risks to hand over some necessities to others receiving pass certificates despite lockdown. I also took heart from the moment when I went to vote, there were so many people who were desiring the future, a better future. We impeached the incompetent president and now are supporting the competent government. I believe the future is always in our hands.
I do believe we are not so selfish as they have instructed us for a long time. Habit of consuming unnecessarily is not our nature but it was trained. Disasters reveal the fundamental reality of what it is and who we are. I believe this is the tremendously crucial moment to paint our future on a blank page. Because unless we do that, they will do that instead of us.
