COVID-19 Crisis Imparts Lessons on Humanities

The COVID-19 pandemic is imparting lessons to humanity, showing how a miniscule organism can bring down countries no matter how powerful their weapons may be. Even the most advanced fortifications did not prevent this unseen enemy from entering countries and spreading throughout the world; taking lives at random, disrupting societies, separating communities, and bringing down economies.

 

 

Trite as it may sound, “we are the world;” we all have to live harmoniously with each other regardless of race, color, belief, culture or gender orientation. Perhaps this virus is trying to demonstrate to us what the less fortunate people in other parts of the world are going through as ordinary aspects of their existence — hunger, poverty, uncertainty, isolation, and fear, all as a result of warring against each other.

Now, as we experience the same kind of sufferings despite the strength of our government’s defenses against those who threaten its sovereignty, the COVID-19 pandemic shows we are all vulnerable to any kind of attack.

As if the virus had a mind of its own, it launched its own offensive in China, spreading a disease that does not readily manifest itself by way of symptoms; allowing those already infected to travel elsewhere and transmit the disease globally.

Pointing fingers on who should be blamed does not matter because anybody could have been responsible for transmitting the disease without knowing it. In fact, most of us did not listen, thinking that we are invulnerable as a nation, equipped with the most advanced technologies.

 

 

 

 

Where do we all go from where the virus leaves us? Will we start anew with a different view on how we should live our lives? Do we get a grip on the reality that something as powerful as a new disease-causing microorganism can unhinge us from our comfortable existence.

Yet how can we do that if we follow a leader who still sees refugees as imminent threats to our country’s future? Even in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic that has been crippling the economy, Donald Trump’s coronavirus leadership includes plans to use force against hapless immigrants, whom he considers as enemies.

Trump Administration Had Plans to Fortify America’s Borders with Military Personnel

Only recently, news website The Nation was able to obtain leaked documents that revealed a request for the Department of Homeland Security to send troops not only to the U.S.-Mexico south border, but also to the U.S. Canadian north border.

 

 

 

According to The Nation, the U.S. Customs Border and Protection (CBP) wants to beef up its security forces by putting in place more than 1,500 military personnel; 1,000 in the northern border and 540 in the southern border where about 5,200 troops are already present.

The Nation reported that the leaked memorandum conveying the CBP request specifically mentioned “illegal entries” that have the potential to spread the infectious disease; without clear explanation on how and on what conditions the CBP will use the military troops.

However, the leaked information immediately reached Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who did not waste time in threshing out a plan, which he said would be a “mistake” on the part of the U.S. government. The Canadian Prime Minister later announced that the U.S. government has temporarily put on hold any plans to use military personnel in preventing people from entering U.S. soil via the U.S.-Canada border, as part of defense measures being taken in the battle against COVID-19.

The U.S.-Canada Border Remains Open to Essential Cross Border Commutes

The economies of both countries benefit from the mutual trading that transpires between them. Still, in light of the need to prevent the novel coronavirus from spreading farther than it already has, the U.S. and Canadain governments have agreed that only cross border commutes and transports of essential products and services will be allowed entry on both sides.

 

 

This denotes that only those that enable and support transport vehicles and their functions, such as but not limited to drivers of trucks for purposes of transporting and delivering essential cargo, for providing towing Sanjose, roadside assistance workers, and technicians, and workers of essential businesses, will be allowed to pass through the border.