As we approach the five year mark of the first known case of covid-19, as we contemplate a half decade of watching a novel virus rip through our communities, our countries, our world, I wanted to do a retrospective on the pandemic.

"What else do we forget about the pandemic? We forget how mesmerised we were as nature rebounded, how clean the air was in the absence of industrial scale human activity. We forget that carbon emissions fell at the sort of pace required to avoid cataclysmic climate change. We forget that no-strings cash payments saw child poverty in America plunge to record lows, that the UK slashed homelessness with schemes that found homes for people sleeping on the street.

We forget that there really was a sense of global solidarity, that the reflection demanded by a pandemic opened up spaces for us to consider truly radical and permanent change. Remember build back better? There really was a sense that the coronavirus, as we all knew it then, could be the catalyst for a better word.

It couldn’t last because of capitalism. This isn’t some glib statement, it is literally why such promises could never be fulfilled. Because such promises required redistribution and structural shifts to economies that billionaires don’t want shifting."

💔

  • ThermonuclearEgg [she/her, they/them]
    ·
    1 day ago

    What else do we forget about the pandemic? We forget how mesmerised we were

    It's annoying to me that this type of language implies that the pandemic itself — and not just the height of it or policies relating to it — is "over" now. Just because insurance wants to overcharge for vaccines now and WHO ended the public health emergency, doesn't mean we aren't still in the 56th month of the ongoing pandemic.