Let’s finally listen to those who understand nature best!
Every crisis produces its own heroes. In the current crisis, these are primarily nurses, paramedics, and doctors, who are working to the point of exhaustion at the risk of their own health to keep our healthcare system running, but also supermarket clerks, pharmacists, truck and forklift drivers, mail carriers, and even teachers and educators who are quickly switching to digital instruction so that our children can still receive the necessary education during the crisis. And yet another group is regaining its standing during this crisis: scientists, who for several years now have been confronted with a zeitgeist of “fake news,” political lies, ideological fundamentalism, pseudo-religious legitimations of power, and a crude oversimplification of the world.
In Germany, scientists and virologists Christian Drosten and Alexander Kekulé have become some of the most popular public figures, while in the U.S., a veritable fan club has formed around physician, immunologist, and presidential advisor Anthony Fauci, whose statements seem so unusually honest, fact-based, and truthful compared to those of his boss. The coronavirus has achieved something that previously seemed almost impossible: the public exposure of the intellectual dishonesty of right-wing populists.
[av_heading heading='The Coronavirus Exposes the Weaknesses of the Supposedly Strong' tag='h3' style=" size=" subheading_active=" subheading_size='15' padding='10' color=" custom_font=" admin_preview_bg="][/av_heading]
The populism of lies and anti-science rhetoric espoused by Donald Trump and Michael Pence, Jair Bolsonaro and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Scott Morrison and Boris Johnson—and their propaganda outlets like Fox News—is being confronted with the harsh reality of a global pandemic that Trump and his ilk declared nonexistent until they simply could no longer deny it. The denial of facts (“This is nothing more than a flu outbreak,” Trump, Bolsonaro), the lies (“We have tests for everyone,” Trump), (“Brazilians can’t get infected,” “God is Brazilian. The cure is right here,” Bolsonaro), and deliberate misdirection (“Anti-malaria pills cure COVID-19 patients,” Trump, Bolsonaro), (“The virus will one day disappear like a miracle,” Trump), (“Cologne water helps against COVID-19,” Erdoğan)—all of this is mercilessly exposed in its untruthful core by the dynamics of the COVID-19 crisis. Donald Trump’s previous preference for leading the U.S. through his hunches and what he considers his infallible gut instinct, rather than through the acknowledgment of facts and scientific evidence, is exposed by the coronavirus as fundamentally flawed. The destructive power of this virus lays bare the failures of the populist right as well as its prejudices against scientific findings with crystal clarity. Had Trump only listened to scientists and public health experts, he could have averted the catastrophe for his country or at least made it far less severe.
Right-wing populists, with their reckless disregard for scientific evidence—such as that regarding climate change or the dangers of environmental destruction—and, more generally, for scientific findings that contradict their beliefs and values, simply do not heed scientific advice when it comes to the dynamics of a pandemic, even when those dynamics are as straightforward as the mathematics of exponential growth. Yet the government, particularly in the U.S., had been forewarned: Following the Ebola epidemic in 2014, the Obama administration was so fearful of the dangers of another epidemic that it introduced several innovations to prepare the nation for a potential pandemic based on the latest scientific findings. Yet every element of these efforts was disregarded, scaled back, or completely discontinued by the Trump administration. Yet scientists knew a surprising amount about the virus and its danger surprisingly early on: On January 5, scientists in Shanghai had identified the complete viral genome from an infected patient and immediately reported it to GenBank, the genetic sequencing database of the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH). By early February, scientists knew that COVID-19 could be easily transmitted between individuals and that it was associated with a relatively high mortality rate, particularly among older and vulnerable people. Instead of listening to the scientists, Trump and his cronies decided not to take them seriously and instead resorted to the tried-and-true methods of cronyism by tasking laypeople close to him with devising a response to the looming pandemic: Vice President Mike Pence, who still believes in the story of creation and vehemently rejects the theory of evolution, and his son-in-law Jared Kushner, a real estate speculator with no knowledge of medical or epidemiological issues, are now supposed to handle it.
[av_heading heading='The Scientific Truth' tag='h3' style=" size=" subheading_active=" subheading_size='15' padding='10' color=" custom_font=" admin_preview_bg="][/av_heading]
So now, harsh reality is finally catching up with all the lies, dogmas, and skepticism toward science espoused by populists. While China, Korea, and many European countries reacted much earlier (though perhaps still not early enough in some cases) and are slowly seeing the first signs of success from their actions, the growth in COVID-19 cases is particularly high right now in the U.S., Turkey, and Brazil (where cases are rising the fastest among countries in the Southern Hemisphere), even though they should have been warned relatively early on due to the earlier onset of the pandemic in other countries. One could say: Scientific truth has struck back in a brutal way.
The coronavirus crisis will soon be over. But what about the long-term, far more far-reaching problems that scientists are warning us about—problems whose urgency, or even very existence, is dismissed by science skeptics like Trump and Bolsonaro? The response of Trump, Bolsonaro, and their ilk to the coronavirus crisis mirrors their response to the even greater climate crisis. Even the very last of their voters and supporters should now realize, in light of the coronavirus crisis, just how flimsy the foundation of their anti-scientific ideology is. Moreover, scientists have long established a link between the COVID-19 virus and our destruction of the tropical rainforests. The COVID-19 virus, as well as the far more dangerous viruses such as Ebola, HIV, Marburg fever, avian flu, MERS, Zika, and Nipah, are examples of animal diseases—so-called zoonoses—that have jumped from wild animals to humans in recent decades. This transmission is greatly facilitated by the shrinking habitats of these animals and environmental destruction. Bats, in particular, are being driven out of the rainforest by the restriction of their natural habitat, bringing them closer to humans. And bats carry a pool of at least 3,200 different coronaviruses! According to current findings, the coronavirus pandemic cannot be directly attributed to rainforest deforestation, and a direct link to bats has not been conclusively proven (the virus likely jumped to humans via an intermediate host at a wildlife market in Wuhan. This intermediate host, perhaps a small mammal, may have been infected by a bat), but for virologists, one thing has long been clear: The combination of a wide range of wild animals with a high prevalence of viruses and the reckless reduction of habitat by humans makes Southeast Asia, in particular, a hotspot for the transmission of dangerous viruses to humans. Here, science is called upon to analyze the potential danger of these viruses more closely and to prepare for possible transmission to humans. However, business and politics also bear responsibility for putting a stop to this rampant destruction of the environment. Simple steps are also necessary, such as closing wildlife markets, as has already been done in China. The COVID-19 crisis and the political response to it demonstrate all too clearly that our societies are capable of taking action in the face of crises. This insight should also help us in addressing the climate crisis.
We should therefore also view the current COVID-19 crisis as an opportunity: on the one hand, as an opportunity to identify the steps needed to be prepared for future viruses that could be far more dangerous. On the other hand, we should constantly keep in mind the image of the right-wing populists’ utter helplessness during the COVID-19 crisis as we debate the climate crisis. Their fight against science, their shameless lies, and their stubborn rejection of empirical evidence have written an inglorious chapter. We should not let them continue this fight, because we will all be the losers in this battle.
[av_promobox button='no' label='Click me' link='manually,http://' link_target="" color='theme-color' custom_bg='#444444' custom_font='#ffffff’ size=’large’ icon_select=’no’ icon=’ue800’ font=’entypo-fontello’ box_color=“ box_custom_font=’#ffffff’ box_custom_bg=’#444444’ box_custom_border=’#333333’ admin_preview_bg=“]
About Lars Jaeger
© Gsell Photography
Lars Jaeger studied physics, mathematics, philosophy, and history, and spent several years conducting research in quantum physics and chaos theory. He lives near Zurich, where he has founded two companies that advise institutional financial investors, while also maintaining a regular blog on science and current events. In addition, he teaches at the European Business School in the Rheingau, among other institutions. His enthusiasm for the natural sciences and philosophy has never waned. His thinking and writing repeatedly revolve around the influence of the natural sciences on our thinking and lives. In September 2019, his latest book, “Mehr Zukunft wagen!” (Dare to Envision a Brighter Future!), was published by Gütersloher Verlagshaus.
[/av_promobox]