First it was a suggestion and then it became an order: wash your hands and keep your distance. Those two seemingly simple actions represent the world we live in today. A world in which millions of people lack the water necessary for the first order and the space for the second. Later we were told to confine ourselves, something also out of the reach of many. Covid-19, or Coronavirus, is highlighting the profound inequality that exists in our global society and between our states.
As the pandemic spreads, healthcare systems are finding that they lack the resources necessary to cope with the crisis. It seems that no country had prepared for such a scenario, despite the warnings issued by scientific and economic sectors. Among others, six years ago professor Ian Goldin of Oxford University predicted that the next global crisis would be brought on by a pandemic. Today the world faces dangerous paradoxes.
When various governments asked their citizens to keep their distance from each other, thousands of prisoners cramped into various overcrowded prisons in Lebanon, Colombia and Italy rioted demanding to be released. In many countries jails are worse than hell. While the State tells people to lock themselves in behind closed doors, prisoners yearn to be let out onto the streets for fear of being infected with the virus.
