Pandemics and conflict


It is interesting to note how pandemics have a habit of popping up in situations of human conflict.
That was so in 430BC during the war between Sparta and Athens in the Hellenic world and during the Great War in 1918 in our era.
The primary disease vector was troop movements and we have a similar situation today with the unprecedented degree of world wide travel by people from the “developed” world. And also migrations and movements away from conflict zones.
So, it was just a matter of time before something would happen on the pandemic front.
This time around, a whole host of complex issues muddy the picture, not least of which are political divisions within and between nation/states, generating conflicts between people for the benefit of the viral agent.
And that agent, COVID, is doing what Nature compels it to do: Respond to the need to multiply in a hostile environment by changing and adapting itself so as to be able to spread more quickly.
This process is well understood by science and the more individual viruses that are exposed to random mutational pressures, the quicker successful variants will emerge and multiply, pushing their older cousins aside.
That process is now being recorded in Britain and is likely happening right across the world at this time.
With political attitudes hardening on both sides of the pandemic issue, along with many other political issues, the stage is set for a perfect storm.

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