Post Pandemic World

Malcolm Gladwell, in his book, The Tipping Point, wrote about how epidemics follow “the Law of the Few, the Stickiness Factor, (and) the Power of Context.” According to Gladwell, plagues start with a few “connectors,” who carry a very contagious or “sticky” virus to a place ripe for its spread, with little consensus or agreement about what to do once the epidemic begins. And that is what happened with COVID-19. A few people initially - and unintentionally - spread an easily transmitted virus in a global context ill-prepared to resist it, and it has reached a tipping point, now affecting every part of the globe.

We are caught between politicians who want to open up the economy and the schools, and public health professionals, most of whom advise against it. This raises the question: who has – or should have – more control? Legally, the politicians have the power to force both closures and re-openings during a pandemic, but public health professionals exert another type of control through their command of data. And yet, despite this illusion of control, the pandemic has reminded us that the more control we try to exert over nature, the more nature reminds us of how little control we really have.

Why have evangelical Christians resisted public-health warnings about COVID-19? Christianity upholds the ethical principle of reciprocity: doing unto others as you would have the do unto you, and not wearing masks violates that principle, since they do not just protect the people wearing them, but also others who might catch the coronavirus and potentially die from it. The answer to the question may lie with the unholy alliance that has emerged in the U.S. between some conservative Protestants and conservative politicians, infusing religion into our politics and dismissing science by blind-faith followers of a bad-faith president.

Communities of color have been disproportionately affected by COVID-19, in part because of the weathering effect of poverty on people. What can we learn from protecting buildings from weathering to reduce the weathering of people?

Viruses do not just attack us physically; they also prey upon our political weaknesses, especially when leaders either hide information, as happened in China, or downplay the threat, as happened in the U.S. Both allow the virus to go viral.

COVID-19 had a humble birth in Wuhan, China, and has gone on to disrupt the entire world. Humanity has dealt with plagues before, and like those in the past, this one will transform how we live and what we do to ensure public health.