Is Covid the Only Threat to Mankind

This weeks topic - is covid the only threat to mankind -asks a simple, straightforward question.IMHO the simple, straightforward answer is not  just NO but a rousing HELL NO. In and of itself, the disease behind this pandemic, while still not thoroughly understood and still without a cure waiting in the wings, will be both better understood and there will be viable vaccines in a year or so. Those come not from folks like Penn and Teller, they come from folks like Tony Fauci, Jonas Salk, Albert Sabin and their scientist brethren.

That's the easy part, quite frankly. While covid itself is IMHO not a direct threat to mankind, our reaction to it may well be a threat to mankind. It is no surprise to me that the response to covid by the USA is one of the world's worst. We have  been shown an abject lack of leadership from our administration and so we have also showed an abject lack of leadership on the world stage. A show of humility and simply following the lead of other countries has left us in the throes of a recession that may yet develop into a full scale depression and has cost us over 160,000 lives. Too many people in this country have simply not taken the disease seriously - from our political leaders on down. What should have been a simple process to slow the spread of covid  here has been weaponized and politicized. A large percentage of the right has decided the government has simply overstepped its bounds and is now trampling on their basic human rights. As this is written, 250,000 of those folks are attending a little gathering in a place called Sturgis, South Dakota. The beer is flowing, mask wearing is not required and is in fact looked down upon by large numbers of attendees. But, the governor thinks adding 45 to the existing presidential images carved into a mountain is not such a bad idea, so how can we be surprised at the lack of respect for covid. Only time will tell if this event becomes a super-spreader event or not. Do any of you, dear readers, think the recent surge in cases and deaths has been caused by the succession of holidays we have just experienced - Memorial day, 4th of July, etc. and the opening of beaches, bars and the like?  Live now, pay later - and payback is a bitch.

According to Wikipedia, the Black Death (Plague, bubonic plague) resulted in the deaths of up to 75–200 million people in Eurasia and North Africa, peaking in Europe from 1347 to 1351.  The 1918 Spanish flu killed up to 50 million people around the world and has been called “the mother of all pandemics”. To  date covid deaths have just passed 725 thousand and the odds of it surpassing either of the previous pandemics appears highly unlikely, so while mankind's existence is not lurking nearby, significant across the board cultural changes just might. And those could pose a threat of sorts to mankind.

We are standing at the brink of a massive shakeup in the existing world order. The defacto leadership from the USA is waning as the USA withdraws into itself under current leadership. The indisputable fact that the world is becoming a smaller place daily and countries that were once at or  near the bottom of the food chain  are clamoring for what they feel is their rightful place at the grownup table. Where once there were two nuclear powers, now according to Wikipedia and Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), the worldwide total inventory of nuclear weapons as of 2019 stood at 13,865, of which 3,750 were deployed with operational forces. In early 2019, more than 90% of the world's 13,865 nuclear weapons were owned by Russia and the United States.  Nine possess actual nuclear weapons: Russia, the United States, China, India, Israel, France, North Korea, Pakistan and the United Kingdom. More than two dozen have nuclear power. Only one has used them in a war. That would be the USA - that shining light on the hill was likely nuclear powered.

How this shifting power dynamic works itself out will likely determine the future of mankind. It will be inextricably tied to how the pandemic plays out. Ultra-right leaning religious zealots seem to be inheriting higher perches in power everywhere - even here. Since many religions share a similar tale of Armageddon, there is the danger of them creating a self-fulfilling prophecy by pushing the wrong button. It seems perhaps nobody learned the lesson of our use of nuclear weapons.

That's it for this weeks topic. Be sure to check the blogs of my compatriots to see what, if anything they had to say.  Conrad, Ramana,  Sanjana, Padmum, & Raju

See ya next week, same bat time, same bat channel.