A Letter from the Corona Virus
Dear humans ofthe Western hemisphere
I hope this letter does not find you well; this is the plan.
When you first saw a headline on my first appearance in China back in December, you probably scrolled down your screen without reading the article. I was well beyond your radar, busy as you were catching up on the financial indexes, celebrity news, Brexit, cat videos.
Christmas came and went. As I swept through Wuhan, you showed the usual reaction you have always shown in the face of tragedies elsewhere: not in your own back yard. You probably thought, “Oh well, this is unfortunate, but expected…I mean, wet markets!” Deep, deep down you were relieved that you were not affected by the events; they cannot happen in your part of the world.
On Brexit day, as some Brits celebrated and others mourned their EU severance, I declared my presence in the heart of Europe, Italy. As I swept through the north of Italy, you Brits kept calm and kept going; after all the economy is your top concern.
Some of you say, we are fighting an evil virus, the virus is taking over our space, threatening our way of life, our very existence. I only act according to my nature: I look for a favourable host to reproduce in. This is hardwired in me, I cannot think, I have no free will, I cannot act differently. The selfish, often violent, occupation of space that belongs to other people and other species, the threat to their ways of life, and often their very existence are actions that only you humans have been guilty of throughout history.
For decades now our Mother Nature has been sending you alarm signals. The hole in the ozone layer, tsunamis, earthquakes, tornados, the melting of the ice caps, the suffocating pollution of air and water, the tons of plastic in the oceans, bushfires…need I go on? And your reaction? Shoot the messengers; arrest, gag, teargas, beat up those brave enough to rebel against your own extinction. You don’t mind anyone saying anything they like — freedom of speech is one of your fundamental values after all — as long as their protests do not block traffic arteries and bridges, and slow down your economy, the apple of your eye. I am only a little virus and don’t understand economics, but the economy is kept alive by people: look after the people, and the economy will take care of itself.
Those of you in the so-called developed world have got used to thinking that you are protected by a cocoon of immunity against uncertainty. You know that getting shopping done only requires the effort of popping down to the shops or clicking away at your laptop; that safe drinking water is literally on tap; that public transport is (largely) regular and reliable. But now the certainty of being able to get anything online becomes a possibility, then only a hope.
The so-called leader of the so-called free world dismissed my influence as a conspiracy theory designed to damage the US economy. He kept calm and carried on with his wars and sanction campaigns around the globe. So I asserted myself in the US too, and now continue uprooting certainties. What choice do I have to force you to take me seriously?
My rampage is not another 9/11, no “us” against “them”. All your pronouns melt into “our”(or at least, they should). Those of you that look out for the weak and the needy, share scarce supplies, volunteer to help out in the NHS in your hundreds of thousands have got the message.
Mother Nature, like all mothers, admonished, warned, chided you. But many of you have been too busy to listen, too absorbed in your screens and your gym workouts and your Instagram feeds, so she had to find another means. I came to her rescue, not to encroach upon your space and to threaten your way of life, but to make you sit up and contemplate on what you are doing to her and to each other, and to the other beings you share the earth with. You have plenty of time to do this while you are in lockdown.
I am only a little virus, and act according to my nature; I cannot think or exercise free will. But you, humans, can do both.
Your friend (even though you may not think so now)
Corona Virus
