We learn everyday about winning and exceptional leadership and outstanding achievements like nowhere else. The Johns Hopkins map of the Covid19 world (as of 11th September 2020) shows a world leader of a different kind: isolated by two oceans and an invisible line in the „North“ a country marked in orange-red at the center of the world. But the color and the dots reveal a country in distress: 6 million and more citizens affected by a virus and nearly 200,000 died from it.
It is difficult to understand that freedom here trumps solidarity. Preventive measures are easy to follow. You can’t defeat a tiny virus with your second ammendment rights and firing an AK 47 in the air hoping it might hit some. Other countries (those with the small red and orange dots) have put safety of citizens above free-to-do-as-I-please. Even that has not defeated the virus, but it has mitigated suffering. Lets hope that „herd immunity“ doesn’t mean immunity from science and common sense. Because that would make citizens a herd of sheep.
See also: Washington Post online, 18 September 2020
Update 25th January 2021
Source: Johns Hopkins Database
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