LESSONS FROM THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC: A TENTATIVE BLUEPRINT TO PRESERVE HUMAN LIFE ON EARTH
Presented by the Meeroff family
Susana B. Director of Administration and Health Services
Myrna L. Adjunct Professor of
Music, Executive Director at South Florida Chamber Ensemble
Daniel E. Professor and
Associate Chair Florida Atlantic University, College of Engineering and
Computer Science Department of Civil, Environmental & Geomatics Engineering
Diego H. Director, College
Relations and Marketing at Palm Beach State College
Jamie G. Research
Scientist/Engineer at NASA Ames Research Center and
Jose C. Clinical Associate Professor of Integrated Medical Sciences; Director Florida Institute for Integrative Medicine
“Luck is what happens when preparation meets
opportunity” Seneca, the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca), 4 BC-65 AC, Roman
Stoic philosopher.
“The greatest threat to our planet is the belief that
someone else will save it”. Robert Swan,
b 1959 History greatest explorer.
“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over
again and expecting different results.” Albert Einstein,1879-1955, Human
greatest genius.
The spread among
human communities of unfriendly germs (bacteria, virus, parasites, etc.) has
been exponentially escalating in past decades (1) and it certainly defied
precedence in late 2019 and early 2020 with the COVID-19 pandemic. It sadly uncovered
the weakness of our current social, political and health care systems and it will
certainly demand important adjustments to maintain safe life conditions on Planet
Earth.
The following is
a list of the major items that will need to be implemented in order to produce
meaningful and beneficial changes:
1
Reduce nomadism: less traveling &
relocations
2
Maintain world human population at
manageable levels
3
Keep maximal individual and collective
hygiene
4
Take personal and social
responsibility for our actions
5
Increase level of education and factual
information
6
Guard the body, the mind and the
spirit
7
Maintain and protect the
environment
8
Treat other species with love and
concern
9
Eliminate frivolous consumption
of goods
10 Support scientific
research and development
11 Plan ahead to prepare
for catastrophic events
12 Modify working habits
to become more efficient
This ideas follows what Erich Fromm emphatically
pointed out more than a half of a century ago “Life is neither a game of chance nor a business deal and we
must seek elsewhere for an appreciation of the real possibilities for
salvation: in the healing art of Medicine” (2)
Reducing nomadism: less
traveling and relocations
One of the reasons Homo Sapiens became the
dominant species on planet earth was the fact that they settle down and became
socially integrated. Now the opposite is true: people travel relentlessly and
move/relocate permanently without creating any solid social, political and/or
health roots (3). Rootedness, the need to establish foundations and to feel at
home in some part of the world (sense of identity), is essential to create a “sane
society”. Unfortunately in recent times traveling for leisure and/or for work
and frequently relocating had become an addiction. The negatives of our
contemporary nomad conduct include:
a Travel transmits infectious
conditions such as gastrointestinal
infections, respiratory infections, urinary tract infections, mosquito transferred
diseases, water spread diseases, etc. Here one poorly understood evil is the absence
of immunity to the local endemic germs the nomad population faces while
traveling and/or relocating.
b Travel harms the environment Driving, cruising, flying, train
traveling, eating out, etc., all have a negative impact on the environment. Between
2009 and 2013 global carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere increased
from 3.9 to 4.5 gigatones (tCO2e), that is four times more than previously
estimated. It is estimated that tourism accounted for about 8% of such global
greenhouse gas emissions (4). Most people while traveling constantly use and
misuse supplies in hotel rooms, leave the air conditioner working hard, forget
to turn off the lights, etc. Flying around the world in gigantic airplanes, traveling
by water in mega cruise ships, exploring distant places using transcontinental
trains or driving around in large RVs all contribute to climate change. The
travel industry increases construction, and produces excessive pollution and too
much waste. Tourism, while often altruistic in nature, often directly and
indirectly ends up destroying the places people visit.
c Travel endangers local cultures – The globalization of language, tradition
and goods weakens the very same culture people traveled to discover. Instead of
going to see the unknown, most people stay in “me too, all alike” resorts and
hotels, eat in universal food franchises (the McDonalds/KFC model) and never
experience the real culture of the country they are visiting.
d Travel makes the world Disneyland –The popular American blogger Matthew Kepnes,
aka Nomadic Matt (5), put it very succinctly: “From the hill tribes of Thailand to the
Andes to cowboys of America, travelers have a certain expectation of what
a place is and how the people should act. We travel to see that expectation. We
travel to see Crocodile Dundee, Mayans, Native Americans, and hill tribe
cultures in Asia. Cultures around the world then put on a show to give us what
we want and, in the process, “Disneyize” their culture. I hate seeing the
little hill tribes in Thailand or Native American shows in America or
“traditional” dance in Vietnam. It’s not how they really act. It’s how
they act for tourists. Doesn’t that just cheapen the experience and, in the
end, cause more harm than good?”
e Travel devastates local economies – Most of the travelling is managed by large
corporations. The fact that travelers stay in franchised hotels and eat in
global restaurants certainly doesn’t help the local economy since the profits
generated by tourism go to the corporation headquarters. Travelers give
preference to what they are familiar with (or have been programmed to be
familiar with), so they stay at those international hotels rather than staying at
local housing facilities never thinking about where the profit goes. Travel can
be a huge economic boom if the money stays local, but that is not the case.
Moving and relocating is another serious
problem today. It is a sort of compulsion related to numerous factors from looking for a better
deal, a better space, or a better neighborhood to escape from poverty or
political persecution. The common factor is that moving produces intense
emotional experiences (usually movers are seeking for external changes to
change unsolved internal problems), sometimes leading to an increased risk of
suicide, substance abuse and even early death. The distress of
frequently moving may also lead to a weaker immune system and slow wound
healing, contribute to obesity, and drive inflammation that can cause cancer.
Finally moving may increase pollution and waste. (6)
Maintaining world human population at manageable levels
The preference of our contemporary, hasty-profit
driven, society, is the notion of “quantity over quality”. Conventional economists,
no matter what political affiliation they maintain, persuaded us to adore the “throw-
away society” with utopic unlimited growth and perpetual expansion. In such a paradigm
human beings are disposable conveniences and if they are no longer available for
profit, they must be replaced with new ones. Accordingly, the world political
leaders have promoted ageism (discarding “old” people) and unlimited population
growth (replace the “old” with the “young”) that is now unmanageable. In our opinion,
everything is wrong with such a model. By promoting unlimited growth and
quantity over quality global society has become very ineffective in a way that
will have long-term devastating effects for the economy and the environment.
The current world population is near 8 billon
people, significantly too large for Planet Earth to accommodate. The ideal total
earth population is still controversial, but most experts agree that the current
one is enormous and dangerous. As famous physician and Nobel Prize winner Paul
Ehrlich said decades ago the optimum population of Earth, enough to guarantee
the minimal physical ingredients of a decent life to everyone, should be 1.5 to
2 billion people (7) rather than the 8 billion who are alive today or the 10
billion expected by 2040. Today we live mostly in megacities that are far too massive
and indeed promote crowdedness, pollution and poor health. Even the strongest
advocate for largest cities, the famous Swiss-French architect Charles-Edouard
Jeanneret, better known as Le Corbusier, suggested that 3 million would be an
ideal size for a city of 60 story tower blocks centered in wide open parkland
surrounded by residential blocks of some six story high houses (8). We have
largely surpassed those limits: New York has a population of 8 million, London
8 million, Sao Paulo 12 million, Tokyo 13.5 million, etc. There are even larger
metropolitan areas that encompass several cities and municipalities in one
solid urban conglomerate (megalopolis) such
as greater New Delhi with 17 million, greater Shanghai with 25 million, etc. The
greater Tokyo area is the world’s most densely populated metropolitan region
with some 38 million residents packed into about 5,200 sq. miles. In the US,
about 80% of the total population – roughly 250 million people – live in urban
areas, mostly in micro- apartments, some as small as 30 sq. feet (6.5 sq.
meters). This new housing facilities prove to be inhumane and unhealthy. Surprisingly, modern economic planners follow
the preference of a contemporary society that is comfortable with the idea that
cities can grow bigger and bigger without suffering any disadvantages of
pollution, overcrowding, and/or disease ( 9,10). Clearly the COVID-19 pandemic
has shown that these large cities suffer when hygiene and isolation are
paramount. Cities like Madrid, New York and Los Angeles bore the brunt of the COVID-19
outbreak.
The British non-conventional economist E.F.
Schumacher once explained that “Modern economics does not distinguish between
renewable and non-renewable materials, as its very method is to equalize and
quantify everything by means of a money price”…In the excitement over unfolding
of his scientific and technical powers, modern man has built a system of
production that ravishes nature and a type of society that mutilates man”(11). Regrettably,
such a system exists today in our modern world.
In our opinion, the evidence clearly
indicates that it is necessary to reduce both, the world population and the
size of our cities in order to maintain a healthy living pattern.
Keeping maximal individual and collective hygiene
Humanity has,
somehow, forgotten that sanitation was the greatest medical milestone of the last century and a
half. Sanitation and hygiene are critical to maintain health, survival, and development.
Many countries are unable, either for economic or cultural reasons, to provide adequate cleanliness for
their entire population, leaving people at risk for water, sanitation and hygiene
(WASH)-related diseases (12,13).
Throughout the world, an estimated 2.5
billion people (1/3 of the world’s population) lack basic sanitation. Basic
sanitation is described as having access to facilities for the safe disposal of
human waste (feces and urine), as well as having the ability to maintain
hygienic conditions, through services such as garbage collection,
industrial/hazardous waste management, and wastewater treatment and disposal.
The world failed to achieve the
United Nations’ Millennium Development Goal (MDG) sanitation target (i.e., to reduce
by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to basic sanitation
by 2015). Now, the United Nations’ Sustainable Development goal (SDG) is for
everyone to have “adequate and equitable” sanitation by 2030 (13).
As we speak, close to 1 billion
people worldwide still defecate in the open; 2.5 billion people lack access to
basic sanitation, more than a half
billion lack access to basic water sources. Diarrhea is the second leading
cause of death in children under five much of which is preventable by clean
water and basic sanitation.
The problem is not only the lack of
resources in the underdeveloped countries but also the unacceptable attitude/education/hubris
of people from the developed ones that ignore hygiene and sanitation. We have
news for them: providence is not the solution for the dilemma; the real
solution will arrive only when we all take responsibility for the challenge and
act accordingly!
Taking personal and social responsibility for our actions
Serendipity is the occurrence and development
of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way. Many people believe that God
and/or Nature will take care of all our problems, sins and errors unreservedly.
The scientific evidence tells us just the opposite. We must confront and solve
our own problems in a proactive manner. As Sophocles said in ancient times "No
good ever comes of leisure purposeless; and heaven never helps the men who will
not act”. Benjamin Franklin reaffirmed this notion in the 18 century when he
said “God helps those who help themselves” (14). Frankly, the social
irresponsibility of contemporary people is monumental. Just think how many
times you, as a car driver in a developed country, use the turning signs or how
many times you comply with the street stop signs. This example may seem trite,
but it exposes a larger problem: civil society only survives if everyone chips
in and takes responsibility for its survival.
Increasing level of information and education
For human beings, education is
as important as oxygen. Education gives people the knowledge and
skills necessary not only to survive but to thrive. Unfortunately, basic education remains
inaccessible for millions of people around the world. Globally, more than
75 million children are not in school and almost 800 million adults are
illiterate and do not have the awareness necessary to improve both their living
conditions and those of their children. Still even more worrisome is the
quality of education provided to those in in developed countries.
Similarly, admittance to real and useful
information, despite all the technological innovations in recent times, is very
limited. Multiple factors contribute to such deficiencies such as limited
access, control by authorities and political forces, cost, security, media bias
etc.
Without education and with very limited or
unreliable information humans cannot strive and improve. Education is not equal
to technical indoctrination as we see employed in the US and other
industrialized countries. Education must be broad and thorough. It must include
the sciences, the arts, the humanities, the history, the languages, the
philosophy, etc. Education ought to cover all aspects of knowledge so
individuals can think independently and be able to make judicious decisions.
Guarding the body, the soul, the mind and the spirit
Human beings are characterized (different
from all other animal species) for having mind and consciousness. The two most
important qualities of the mind are intuition and logic. With consciousness come uncertainties and
elusive ideas such as the meaning of life. According to the gnostic view, the
human being is formed by the amalgamation of several components, some material
(body, energy) and some immaterial (mind, soul, spirit) that are completely
integrated and functioning together allowing the proper balance indispensable
for well being and survival. Therefore, we must take care of ourselves, by being
responsible for all the elements in harmony with their own belief and
principles. One important caveat: taking care of the components doesn’t mean
being always totally under mind control since the body and the soul can heal
themselves spontaneously (15). Relaxation using different methods available such
as meditation, Reiki, exercise, pray, etc., is an active process that allows
this to occur.
.
Protecting the environment
Human life exists on Planet Earth, an eco-system
(ES) that we depend on to sustain life as the Gaia theory explains (16, 17). It is a human moral
obligation to protect the
environment from pollution and other deleterious anthropogenic activities that lead to ecological degradation and endanger life.
Unfortunately,
many leaders of the world do not take this issue seriously. The young
environmental activist Greta Thunberg summarized the state we are in succinctly
when she said, "Since our leaders are behaving like children, we will have
to take the responsibility they should have taken long
ago." …."I want you to act as if the house is on fire, because
it is."…. "You must unite behind the science. You must take action.
You must do the impossible. Because giving up can never ever be an option” (18).
Instead of making choices to protect the environment, world leaders are still
making decisions to protect the short-term profits of an industrial class in
order to garner financial support for elections. Scientists are ignored and the
people suffer.
We strongly
believe that the enemy is not the political rival; instead it is the invisible
threats to human existence such as the COVID-19. Consequently, we must set
aside trivial differences an all work together to solve the crisis.
Treating other species with love and concern
We should remember that humans are the
dominant animal species on earth. Hence, we have the obligation of treating
other species with love and respect.
As researcher Anca Gheaus (19) once said “
philosophers working on animal ethics have focused, with good reasons, on the
wrongness of cruelty toward animal and on devaluating their lives”…”love for
animals should not be a reason for treating them ethically. It is animals’
sentient nature and/or their being right –holders, not the emotional bonds they
have with human beings, that generates the ethical aspect of the animal-human
relationship”. We must re-evaluate the conflicts and problems caused by
misunderstanding the difference between taming and domesticating animals (20).
Eliminating frivolous consumerism
Consumerism is part of human life and will
continue to be an integral part of our behavior since we need to consume things
to survive. However, the excessive acquisition and accumulation of material
goods is not constructive. Owning less
can be a great benefit to individuals (less stress, less debt, more time, more
freedom) as well as to the community (less waste, less pollution, less misuse
of resources). The COVID-19 pandemic may be an important turning point leading
to less market society and hyper-individualism. Instead we will need more family
and community integration.
Supporting scientific research and development
Scientific research is indispensable for
developing understanding of the world around us. This understanding drives innovation
and allows us to live healthier and safer lives.
Generally the world agrees with this: a solid
majority of adults in the world do agree that government investment in both
basic science research and in engineering and technology pay off in the long
run. Still government investment in research is extremely limited as
fundamental research is often not profitable, especially to large multinational
corporations that spend obscene amounts of money lobbying government officials.
Such missteps have proven fatal for thousands during recent infectious
epidemics and pandemics (Zika, Dengue, COVID-19, etc.). Furthermore, most
research is currently undertaken with the intent to make a profit or build
weapons. To effectively benefit humankind, research must be separated from application in industry and
defense.
Long term planning to prepare for catastrophic events
Unfortunately,
most of the world neglects disaster preparedness. It takes knowledge, effort,
time and a great deal of money in the short term to be ready for any kind of
disaster.
Tragically,
failure to invest in the short term often leads to higher costs (both in lives
and property) when the disaster does strike. Such a tragedy occurred when
Hurricane Katrina devastated the city of New Orleans as critical infrastructure
to prevent flooding was neglected for decades
Governments
must spend the time, resources and money to be fully prepared for situations
such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Former vice president Al Gore recommended in
2006 “Is it possible that we should prepare for other serious threats in
addition to terrorism? It’s time to focus on other dangers as well” (21). Bill
Gates advised us of the same in 2010 (22) and now says “Billions of dollars for
anti-pandemic efforts is a lot of money. But that’s the scale of investment
required to solve the problem. And given the economic pain that an epidemic can
impose — we’re already seeing how Covid-19 can disrupt supply chains and stock
markets, not to mention people’s lives — it will be a bargain”(23).
Modifying working habits, slowing down and becoming more efficient
Among other factors, the COVID-19 pandemic was
the result of the eccentric attitude
of contemporary civilization “where people wear busy like a
badge of honor, not being busy can feel awkward and unnatural” (24) and when
not busy working, people have been traveling fiercely without sense. Contemporary
society has been living thinking that possessing material goods is the only
important issue. “Constantly
grinding and churning leads to burnout, anxiety, and stress-related illnesses.
Our immunity weakens, we age faster and we become more susceptible to colds (viral infections).Very few people thought about accomplishing something.” (24,
25).
Consequently
and in response, society should shift their social attitude, becoming more united
and tribalistic to cope with future threats
In the future
we shall be working more from home and slowing down. Paradoxically this change
will increase productivity. Working from home, when possible, has many crucial advantages
such as flexibility, more work done in less time, less unnecessary travel, less
exposure to germs, better communications, etc. (26). There are many recipes for
slowing down that can be implemented including focusing on most important thing
first, making fewer decisions, avoiding multitasking, using the Paretto
Principle (27), etc. We are suddenly facing a new reality and we must learn how
to change accordingly.
FINAL CONCLUSIONS
Regrettably, we suspect that “At the end of the day, things will get worse before they get better".
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JCMeeroff, MD, © Copyright 2020. All rights
reserved
How
to cite this article:
Meeroff S et al.
(2020)). Lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic: A tentative blueprint to preserve
human live on earth. https://www.meeroffmedicine.com/articles/Society after
COVID-19
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