By Nicholas Waller – In the space of just a few weeks, the COVID-19 pandemic has plunged much of the world into a state suspended paralysis. What’s more, this crisis has laid bare just how unprepared we in the developed world are when a major global catastrophe strikes at the very heart of our way of life. But if the coronavirus pandemic has taught us anything, it is that delaying prudent policymaking has deadly and economically ruinous consequences.
When the first signs of an outbreak began in China in late 2019, the earliest warnings were first covered up by a paranoid Communist regime that was intent on keeping the world uninformed about the deadly nature of the disease. Despite multiple alarms in Europe and the United States shortly after the new year, those warnings went unheeded.
While the lessons to be learned from the COVID-19 pandemic await an in-depth review once the worst phase of the crisis passes, the world is now left with finding a way to somehow tame the disease while at the same time picking up the pieces of the world’s economies and forging ahead with a more secure post-pandemic existence.
In order to do that, the world’s democracies must acknowledge the disturbing speed by which aggressive and heavy-handed measures were enacted by officials in nations with little-to-no-history of authoritarianism as part of their efforts to combat the spread of the virus. This has led to many of the core tenants of modern liberal democracy becoming the main casualties of the COVID-19 crisis as strict lockdowns, curfews, restrictions on the press, public shaming of those who question the authorities, and restrictions on the right to assemble became the order of the day.
The distinctly Orwellian character of each of the aforementioned acts is impossible to ignore. This means that each of the leading nations of the free world must come to the harsh realization that once certain inalienable rights are stripped away, it is nearly impossible to ever recoup what has been forever lost – the post-9/11 world taught each and every one of us that simple but fundamental lesson.
When the world moves into the next uncharted phases of the post- COVID-19, Europeans must be at the forefront of how to demonstrate the means by which democratic principles can be preserved.
As national economies contract, resources will shrink, and governments will struggle to provide for their own populations. But by pooling together the vast scientific, manufacturing, and innovative resources that the EU possesses – and working in tandem with its close allies in the US, UK, and Canada – Europe can produce and store vital medical and telecommunications resources that would wean itself off a destructive dependence on Chinese supplies, part of which contributed to the sense of malaise and outright hubris that contributed to the severity of the pandemic. more>