Politics and the pandemic

The complete story of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2—the virus that causes coronavirus disease 2019 infection—is not yet written. Up to the date of this publication, known global infections are now approaching 12 million, and deaths from the disease are approaching the 600,000 mark. While it was widely predicted by health experts that the pandemic would reach and exceed these proportions, what was not expected is that it would also unearth the fundamental flaws in governance that it has, not just in lesser developed states, but in some of the world’s most advanced democracies. The government’s response to the world over has been primarily to react to the demands of today’s politics in this new world where political fortunes are made and destroyed overnight, sometimes based on the mass reaction to a single badly worded tweet. Beyond this, political decisions to enact quarantine measures and other rules to manage the spread of the virus are complicated and costly, not just in monetary terms, but in terms of political capital, and in terms of the economic fallout that will last long beyond the pandemic itself. We are witnessing only the beginning of the virus’ social and economic implications as it unfolds.