The World’s Virus

How the response to Coronavirus helps us take stock of technological and moral problems around the World

This article was originally published on Wonk Bridge

Image from IIED

1. Whose Virus?
2. The States & Their Responses
3. What Will Act II of the Coronavirus Look Like?
4. The Value of Freedom in Sickness
5. For Your Information: Advice on Identifying and Protecting Against COVID-19

Pandemics tend to have an air of moral reckoning about them. That’s not simply because, particularly in the West, we inherit the remains of centuries of religious thinking that interpreted widespread disease and natural disaster as missives from an austere and imperious God. It is because such adverse circumstances tend to give us the measure of ourselves, as individuals and States.

The primary hypothesis that has emerged from the early months of the global Coronavirus outbreak is that, holistically, the East is considerably more technologically advanced than the West. When I say ‘holistic terms’, I refer not only to the pure calibre of technology in use, but the overall degree of moral soundness with which said technology has been deployed, and the social sensibilities that underpin its use.