how have we come to this?

I’ve just got back from a lovely, sunny spring morning bike ride.

Nothing peculiar about that, just that it might be the last time I’m able to do this for some time if UK Government implements plans to socially isolate those over 70 or others deemed vulnerable to Covid-19.

As a myeloma patient, albeit in partial remission, advice suggests this will apply to me.

Anyway, while I was out on my bike (where I do most of my thinking) my mind kept asking how, in 2020, we have come to this.

After all, we put a person on the moon 50 years ago, landed a probe on a small asteroid millions of miles away with pinpoint accuracy, have rovers and devices on various planets and moons yet we can’t seemingly protect ourselves from or cure ourselves of a virus.

Now, I don’t subscribe to any of the population control or big business strategy conspiracy theories, even though killing off some of the elderly and sick (like me) will ease pressure on pension and health care systems the world over.  The hundreds of small businesses that will fail because of this will open the doors for big business to finally take over.

But I did get around to thinking how we have arrived at where we are when we are in such an otherwise advanced state of human development.

All I could keep coming back to was nature.

We have abused our planet over the past century; polluting the skies with CO2 and poisoning the oceans with waste and plastic.  We have seen the extinction of more species in the last 10 years than in the previous thousand.  

We are (and you can’t argue with this) keeping people alive artificially for longer and longer.  And before you shout “fascist” at me, I include myself in that number.  Also, my mother could still be alive, living in the misery of dementia, were it not for her wishes not to be resuscitated.

So, is this our planet fighting back?  I mean, we will eventually find a vaccine or an anti-viral drug to defeat Covid-19.  But then another one will come along, then another and another.

Our planet is polluted, overpopulated and dying slowly.  Are these viruses its way of fighting back and taking control?  After all, nature has a way of balancing itself.

Perhaps our planet is flexing her muscles and letting us know who actually is in control.

NB - many of my posts in the next few weeks were written prior to Covid-19 taking everything over.