All It Takes to Beat the Coronavirus is a History Book.
Right now it may seem like the coronavirus is kicking the world’s ass from death rates and cases, to the backlash of businesses, events, and schools being closed. As overwhelming this may seem, this isn’t the first time the world has gone through this. Not specifically a pandemic, but a crisis that is forcing the world to confront the order of things may it be a pandemic, war, economic depression, or any other problem. Through those times, although the problem was different, the solution stemmed from the government, along with businesses, and people working together to solve it. To put it more simply and specifically, in order to defeat this pandemic, one doesn’t have to look any further than World War 2. Seeing how the world specifically the country handled World War 2 right after the Great Depression is where the answer is, and it’s actually common sense.
Right before World War 2, the U.S. was in the Great Depression along with the rest of the world. What got the world out, ironically was the war. When Pearl Harbor happened, FDR, the president for those who don’t know, along with the federal government gave out billions of dollars in federal contracts to major corporations to mass produce all the tools we needed for the war: planes, guns, bullets, tanks, etc. This brought factories back to life that had been closed as now people were being paid once more to work. Jobs were created, people were back to work, and everyone made money all while arming us with what we needed to fight the war. The federal contracts were needed at a time when businesses were closed, people were out of work, and the economy was unstable. Sounds familiar?
What the government could have done recently, rather than spending trillions of dollars in emergency funds for people and businesses to keep them afloat during this crisis as a defense, they should have used that money as federal contracts. Those contracts would have gone to major corporations such as Apple, Google, Amazon, and Walmart, corporations that have billions and probably trillions if combined. With the contracts, the corporations would have mass produced ventilators, masks, hand sanitizers, all the products that were in shortage initially, and then sale them across every store in the entire country. Imagine going to a GameStop or a gym and they’re selling masks and hand sanitizer produced by Google in the spring. Not only does Google, the producer, get paid from the contracts and even the selling of those masks, but so do GameStop for selling them. This will allow both companies to make a profit. Not only that, but in theory, the so called non-essential businesses would remain open because it’s hard to tell a business they’re non-essential when they’re selling essential items along with their “non essentials.” This isn’t communism, it’s capitalism, as the major corporations would still be able to make their regular items.
Taking another page out of history, just like the atomic bomb was researched and conceived through university research, the government should have and could still give loads of money to universities to research and develop a vaccine. Even recently in the UK and India, vaccines are being developed at UNIVERSITIES. The government is paying big corporations as of now to develop a vaccine, but that money should have also went to public and private universities rather than just corporations.
If the government had follow the steps of the past when the world was faced with a similar problem, things might have been better. Government contracts to businesses to mass produce necessary items for this crisis, and to universities to fund their research to solve the problem has been done in the past and could have and should be done now.
But common sense doesn’t require even looking at history, all one had to do was look at the present. A simple google search, seeing which countries had the most success against the coronavirus would have revealed countries such as Vietnam, New Zealand, Germany, and Netherlands to name a few. Although they have a smaller population than the United States, seeing their models would have supplied a blue print to follow or at least make a plan based upon. A simple Google search would have revealed that some of those countries had a national shutdown early on, listened to the experts, and worked together. A shutdown in this country will never work as it is because as long as other businesses are allowed to run with infinite amount of people going in and out, the coronavirus will always be a threat. The coronavirus doesn’t discriminate, it doesn’t care if it’s a gym or a grocery store, Walmart or Starbucks, essential or non-essential; so it’s amazing that some businesses can be open but others cannot while the open ones are just as susceptible to the virus as the other ones, but of course the government wants to throw in any solution even if it’s a shitty one to say they did something when in reality they ain’t done shit.
If you want to do something right, look at the ones who are having success at it, and follow their blueprint. History, and other countries reveal the answers to our problem. If the coronavirus was seen as a game, then we’re getting our asses kicked because our coaches our making up plays as they go rather than following a blueprint. At that point, calling plays from Madden 2005 would have provided better results than the ones we’re seeing, metaphorically. Realistically, we’re fucked.
Now it is important to add, that this article was conceived a week ago, and just recently the government has announced that it had given an almost 1 billion dollar control to Kodak to start producing medicine/drugs to fight the coronavirus. You see what is being done, now? Federal contracts to major corporations to produce what we need to fight the coronavirus. It’s about time, and only time will tell if this is the beginning of steps towards a brighter future.
“Prepare for the unknown by studying how others in the past have coped with the unforeseeable and the unpredictable.”
― George S. Patton US General 1885-1945
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