Blog Post 7: News Review

COVID-19: Fighting The Pandemic 

In the 19th century vaccination was from the church bell-ringer, and if you fell sick you may have been sent to an epidemic hospital outside town. People have combated recurrent epidemics through the ages in different ways. And COVID-19 demonstrates how vulnerable we still are.

In this article provided by Technology, historian Hans Nilsson describes the ever-changing ways dealt by society when health threats suffice. 

Humanity has been dealing with health issues since the beginning of time. Decade after decade, century after century, new illnesses and pandemics suffice. The more progress humanity has made throughout the passage of time, the more we have come to understand the emergence of illnesses, and most of the time we find a cure, a vaccine to combat the virus and numerous lives are saved after a tsunami of death. But that is how the world works.

Living in such a comfortable modernized world with science and technology being the epi-center, we were never prepared for what was coming. The new pandemic shows us that even nowadays we are still vulnerable human beings. The only difference is that we have the means to combat it but research takes a lot of time. Still, thousands have died in these five months. 

In our era, it’s not morally acceptable to let people just die. Each death affects us”, says Hans Nilsson.

What I find absolutely wrong with this article is the message that revolves around death. We're all aware that death is a part of life but that does not mean we should accept it like we're throwing away a piece of meat. After all, part of what makes us human are our emotions. Nilsson emphasizes people's refusal to accept death, unlike past times where it was a normal thing. However, we have to keep in mind that today's world is more advanced than ever before. However, his message hit me hard. Who would ever want a loved one to die? Even though it is part of life, it does not mean that humanity needs to succumb to it. In my opinion, I think Nilsson is expressing his own point of view from a scientific perspective and not from a humanistic point of view. Looking at this article from a reader's perspective, it truly angers me to simply read something where it is telling me that it's not morally acceptable to let people just die. I cannot fathom the idea and during these harsh times, people want hope and not being fed more negativity. I cannot say that this statement is a wake-up call or a reality check because we are living in this situation in the present times and I feel for everyone who lost someone. 

Nilsson argues about preparedness revolving around this pandemic and he looks at it through a historic perspective by comparing it to previous pandemics and past societies. However, comparing the present situation to the past is a mistake because every situation is unique. Making a list of past pandemics and trying to learn something from them is one thing but we cannot ever say if some were better prepared then others. Looking at it from a realistic point of view, we cannot ever be ready for any pandemic in any generation. We can be guarded, try to have the best technologies but we cannot ever know what we need to prepare for. That is why pandemics always hit us like a tsunami. We cannot outrun any illness or disease because resources will always be limited. That is how the world works but we can combat it by using vaccines which in turn need a long time to be tested and produced.

“Vaccines take a long time to produce, and our economy is based on the stores being kept small. And it’s difficult to be prepared, when you don’t know in advance what you should prepare for.”

This article was not what I really expected as a reader. I was expecting more information from a historic point of view of other past epidemics that hit. I was interested in learning something. Also, putting in some words of encouragement would have made the article more realistic to many readers during the harsh times we are experiencing.