A Note on COVID-19

In the time between submitting the manuscript to the publisher and finalizing the editing process for this book, the world has been consumed by the coronavirus. The challenges this pandemic presents are accelerating the crises we identified in these pages. The extreme but necessary measures taken by nations around the world to flatten the infection curve will have major impacts on the global economy, and those in the most fragile groups will suffer increasing asymmetry. Technology offers us some big advantages in combating the virus, but social media is fragmenting and multiplying messages, creating confusion and sometimes panic. The challenges aging populations pose to inadequate healthcare systems have been fast-forwarded and are now at the heart of the crisis. Polarization and the general lack of trust make it difficult for societies to act in concert when it is most crucial to do so.

Yet the solutions presented in these pages offer hope at a time when it is so desperately needed. The lack of local resources and the need to localize some manufacturing is evident from critical shortages experienced during the pandemic, but institutions are rapidly acknowledging the need to get significantly better at doing massive things quickly and well. Indeed, some of the most impressive and strongest responses are coming from communities. Scientific and pharmaceutical industries are moving to a wartime footing to scale up solutions. And, paradoxically, the extreme nature of social isolation is bringing people together through virtual means as they share their common experiences.  

The coronavirus pandemic is clearly a watershed event for humanity. The question is, will we take the best from our responses to the challenge and apply it to the crises outlined in this book, or will we expend all our energy on solving the short-term problem and put longer-horizon issues on the back burner? We have a chance to remake the world on better terms and take decisions now that will bring us out of COVID-19 stronger, with lessons learned, and in a way that prepares us for the future. If we don’t choose that path, we will prolong the suffering, and midnight may come even sooner. If we build on the emerging sense of cooperation and focus on the common good and what is important in life, dawn may come even sooner that we could have hoped.