Following the news regarding coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) we’d be led to believe humanity faces an unprecedented crisis – and judging by the socioeconomic damage being done – it is not that difficult to believe some sort of unprecedented crisis is indeed unfolding.
Yet the sense of urgency imposed upon the general public – prompting lockdowns around the globe and unprecedented measures being put in place – all centered around fighting a supposedly dangerous pathogen and avoiding overburdening global healthcare infrastructure – is entirely artificial.
If Covid-19 was truly a pandemic worthy of such hysteria – a pandemic the West has claimed over the years was all but inevitable – why has the current international order dominated by the West failed so utterly in dealing with Covid-19?
Trillions for Endless War, Nothing for Pandemic Preparations?
Literally trillions of dollars have been dumped into the US-led war in Afghanistan alone – saying nothing of the trillions more spent on occupying Iraq, waging war in Libya and Syria, aiding Saudi Arabia in the destruction of Yemen, and the myriad of “soft-power” interventions unfolding across the rest of the globe.
These are trillions of dollars that could have instead filled hospitals with top-of-the-line ventilators as well as filled warehouses with much cheaper and portable ventilators that could be deployed when and where needed.
And it wasn’t as if the need for ventilators was just suddenly realized amid the Covid-19 outbreak. An MIT paper written in 2010 titled, “Design and Prototyping of a Low-cost Portable Mechanical
Ventilator”, – a full decade ago – would note:..........read more...........
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