Since the end of the pandemic in 2020, all analyzes have come to confirm the fact that this pandemic, this famous "Great Lockdown", has just highlighted even more the problems and inequalities of the world then.
Inequalities to list were not what was missing at the time! But one that was clearly visible from the start of the crisis, and especially in the United States, was that of the privileges of the wealthiest to access care services efficiently, quality and without having to go through the same procedures than everyone else.
There has been a lot of information shared on these well-to-do families using private concierges to get their screening tests, or who had recruited personal doctors ... Not to mention of course those who were able to "confine" themselves in homes or on luxury yachts, letting others continue to go to work and put themselves in danger to run the economy.
The situation was the same when it came to having access to protective equipment and scientifically validated first treatments. Despite the general call for international cooperation and individual solidarity, many have used their wealth or power to prioritize themselves at the expense of the majority rank.
For many this situation appears to be so normal for this past era, but for as much, it remains as surprising as remembering that there was a time when people were allowed to smoke on planes!
The main issue lied in the fact that after the crisis this situation got even worse. Like the ebb of waves discovering the sand on the beach, the pandemic first had a phase of increase in these inequalities and the wave of the virus came to reveal our worst instincts underneath the current.
Most certainly driven by our instinctive fears and the desire to return to the world before the pandemic, many governments, especially in the most powerful countries, have implemented measures to favor these wealthy categories: non-reform of social security, non-control of government aid made available to companies and which ultimately served more to invest in the financial markets… We quickly observed the closure of many public hospitals and the surge in pharmaceutical products, boosted on the markets by this now concrete fear of a new pandemic.
Playing on collective anxiety, the pharmaceutical industries were able to generate significant profits which were then redirected into investments for the benefit of high-end services for affluent families wishing to protect themselves from the second, third and many other pandemic waves which followed the first phase of the pandemic.
It will have taken almost 15 years and an economy on the brink of the abyss due to a workforce exhausted by chronic diseases accentuated by climate events, a persistent impossibility of making ends meet… for governments to change and realize the low long-term cost of inclusive and universal public health and social security policies.
As in all crises, unfortunately, humanity first reacted instinctively, allowing itself to be overwhelmed by its primary fears and prehistoric behaviors that will only have weakened its resilience when it should have strengthened it by more cooperation and trades.
Hopefully, now that the positive and global momentum has started, the increasingly likely disasters to come will allow us to develop faster and healthier feedback. Otherwise, our species may drown very quickly!