Humanity ahead of politics and profiteering

The start of a new decade of 2020 seems a distant memory. We have not even completed the first quarter, and for most, the new financial year has not started. Yet the invisible enemy has unleashed World War 3 on Humanity.

What we took for granted only a few weeks ago, now is an entirely different world where we cannot even touch our loved ones.

Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft had already warned us of this threat in his TED talk in 2015, where he argued that mankind needed to be better prepared for the viral invasion.

Whereas we have deterrents and highly sophisticated weapons to fight off conventional warfare, we had nothing as close with the micros, which are the invisible enemy. Prime Minister Boris Johnson only recently argued that the coronavirus is even more dangerous because we cannot see it.

Just within two months, more than ten thousand people have lost their lives, and more than a quarter a million people have been infected. There are powerful images of the Italian armed forces vehicles driving through the streets.

But they are not travelling to fight a war but carrying the coffins of thousands of people who have died because the morgues cannot cope with the vast numbers. Italy now has the highest number of casualties. It is a shocking sight. A human tragedy. 

Amid such tragedy, there have been heroes.  There are people in the frontline who are treating those who are infected. Numerous retailers are offering free drinks and food to NHS staff to ease their burden. There is some community spirit in helping those most in need in our neighbourhoods. 

In times of such tragedy, the world has to pull together. But this is not always the case. People are profiteering. Sanitisers are being sold on eBay at an astonishing 1000% price hike.

Grocery shops are putting up prices of vegetables and basic foodstuff. Unfortunately, people are paying the costs as panic buying has set in, and people are frightened of the prospect of isolation and food shortages.

Whereas if we all behaved sensibly and followed basic rules that have been set out by the experts, there will be no food shortages and we can make the best of an extraordinary situation.

Public officials need to stop playing politics and step up in fulfilling their duties. Iran is a classic example, where the officials were too late in dealing with the onslaught by not shutting down public buildings earlier, all in the name of faith. What happened to the belief that requires you to protect the lives of people?

While thousands of innocent Iranians are dying, their politicians are playing tit for tat with the Americans, who are further turning on the screws with the sanctions, bringing only more misery to the innocent people of Iran who are bearing the brunt of the pain. Can we not put politics to one side for a while and lift the sanctions on Iran till the coronavirus is over? Why not hold the moral high ground at such a time?

Let us put Humanity ahead of selfishness and greed. It is time to step up. Politics should be about the greater good and not about one doctrine superiority over another. If we do not come together as a single powerful force, we would have wasted valuable time fighting amongst ourselves instead of the invisible enemy. Let us put Humanity ahead of selfishness and greed.