The yin and yang of COVID-19.
I have spent day 2 of London’s lockdown doing MS-related webinars; i.e. attending meetings virtually. For every negative, there is a positive, the yin-and-yang of COVID-19.
Environmental activists are claiming SARS-CoV2/COVID19 is simply nature’s way of fighting back. We have pushed planet earth and its environment to the brink and it is responding as predicted.
The fact that academics such as me are working differently has to be a good thing. Do you agree? This is something I am very aware of and is one of the reasons why we started triMS-online; virtual conferences are clearly the way we are going to exchange information in the future. Our MS Academy webinar on “Managing MS remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic” takes things one step further, i.e. how can we revolutionise the management of MS and do as much as possible remotely.
The combined value of the world’s stock markets is related to global GDP, which in turn represents global consumption. The fact that the major stock markets have crashed by over 30% the world’s global consumption energy and other resources will be plummeting. This is forcing us to work differently. Is this not a good thing?
We may all be anxious and worried about the crisis we are in at present, but it will pass. This virus (SARS-CoV2) is virulent, but not that virulent. A global pandemic of SARS and MERS, with the same level of infectivity as SARS-CoV2, would have been an order of magnitude worse. Maybe we should be saying this pandemic could have been much worse.
I think we will look at back 2019 and 2020 as being the turning point when the world realised we need to take the environment seriously. The images of Australia burning and COVID-19 sweeping across the world is telling us that we are going to have to do things differently in the future.
COVID-19 is forcing us to work differently, which happens to be more environmentally-friendly, and is challenging the Victorian model of healthcare. One very positive thing that may come out of this epidemic is that we may just prevent ourselves from going beyond the environmental tipping point.
Despite my environmental optimism, this does not help you in the here and now, which is why I have spent the better part of the last 3 days getting my MS-Selfie (www.ms-selfie.org) website off the ground and answering your questions about COVID-19. I have addressed the next batch of questions, but as I answer questions more come in so apologies if I haven’t got to your questions yes. Once I am redeployed, which I expect to happen in about a week’s time, I may not have time to do any online activities.
CoI: multiple