Sino File | Coronavirus: China can’t suppress it, US military can’t kill it. Covid-19 is the real Godzilla
- The truth to emerge from the pandemic is that all humans share a common destiny, and we are embroiled in our biggest battle since World War II
- Only when the human race chooses to share, help, care, cooperate and support each other can we beat this enemy from nature
Never before has a pandemic or natural disaster had such a wide and deep impact on human life. Normal activity in the vast majority of nations has come to a halt, with massive school shutdowns, major events suspended or cancelled, most airlines grounded, many metro systems closed, cities locked down and national borders closed – not to mention the human casualties.
Covid-19 constitutes a potentially bigger external threat to mankind’s survival than any foe from within the species itself since the defeat of the Axis powers in 1945.
The outbreak also speaks volumes about the fact that humans are as vulnerable as any living creature on earth to Mother Nature’s wrath. Such vulnerability might be partly due to our innocence and ignorance and partly due to our complacency, thanks to the luxury afforded us by peace, affluence, cosiness of life, and the arrival of high technology.
For these reasons, we were apparently ill-prepared to deal with the catastrophe. World leaders did not seem to anticipate the severity of the nascent pandemic, allowing it to spread around the world freely before action was taken to confine it. Covid-19 is the real Godzilla, wreaking havoc from one country to another, ignoring race, ethnicity, religion, ideology and political beliefs under sovereign state powers.
The world’s most repressive states cannot suppress it, nor can the world’s most powerful military kill it. Mighty nations might use their political and military prowess to solve any geopolitical challenge, but not this pandemic. The United States Armed Forces has won numerous wars, but its formidable firepower has failed in the face of the virus.
