Insecurity in the Age of Pathogens

The lasting legacy of this current pandemic, or plandemic as some are calling it, on the general population will be a deep sense of insecurity. One day you have a job, the next you don't. One day you have a thriving small business, the next day you're staring at bankruptcy. The rapidity and scale of the global shutdown is without historical precedent.

The police and army seem largely unaffected by the pandemic. I haven't seen any statistics regarding infection rates for these two groups. Additionally, their jobs are secure. Police stations and army posts are not being closed down. Likewise, the jobs of government employees are secure. For persons working in private companies and businesses, jobs can be lost quickly in a pandemic. For example, take this headline from an article that appeared in the Evening Standard on March 16th 2020:

Virgin Atlantic asks staff to take eight weeks
of unpaid leave as it cuts 80% of flights 

For people working in the travel and hospitality industry, things will never be quite the same again. What if there's another pandemic, like COVID-19, next year? The world has been conditioned to the possibility of a pandemic for decades now. The seasonal flu has always been portrayed as the source of a possible pandemic if a particularly virulent strain should arise. The importance of getting your flu shot, as well as a host of other vaccines, has been heavily promoted. 

The spectre of the Spanish Flu of 1918 is always raised as proof of what might happen if we are not on guard. However in a pandemic, while individuals might sicken and die, the world would go on. At least that was the expectation. Now we know that's not the case. The world didn't go on. It stopped, and people lost their jobs or were stranded in foreign countries or on cruise ships. Many people's lives have been turned upside down. Figure 1 shows the death toll as of March 22nd 2020: 

Figure 1: source 

This is a tiny number by global standards. By contrast Figure 2 features an infographic concerning the impact of malaria: 

Figure 2: source 

It's unlikely that the deaths in 2020 from COVID-19 will match the death toll from Malaria. The latter of course is not a pandemic and is endemic in only certain parts of the world. The point is that there are many other illnesses that cause death rates far higher than the current virus and no lockdowns, global or even local, are enforced.

After COVID-19, people are going to be looking for more secure employment. Jobs that are perceived as "pandemic-resistant" will be in high demand. One possible scenario is that most small businesses collapse and are taken over by banks. The businesses however, continue with the owners being paid a salary by the banks. Everybody becomes an employee. As home owners default on their mortgages, banks take them over but people are allowed to continue living in them and paying a nominal rent. Nobody owns anything. Perceiving the vulnerability of workers during pandemic lockdowns, the government introduces a Universal Basic Income for everybody.

The governments and especially the central banks become all powerful. There is no paper money anymore. Your government-allotted income is credited to your bank account. On the pretext of tracing your previous contacts if you are found to be infected, it will be mandated that location-tracking apps be installed on mobile phones and these must be carried on your person when leaving your home. The penalty for not complying as always will be fines or imprisonment. 

So this is the bleak, cashless future. A future in which your location and purchases are constantly tracked. You, like nearly everyone else, works for the government and owns nothing. You are provided with a basic income and accommodation whether you work or not. You must comply with whatever the government tells you to do e.g. submit to vaccinations. As in Huxley's "Brave New World", you may be "happified" with a daily dose of "soma". This dystopia will be packaged and propagandised in a way that makes you feel grateful that you have such benevolent overlords.

Our overlords, having acquired the world's assets and with a militarised police force at their beck and call, will have achieved total control over their underlings (most of whom will have actively supported their enslavement). Decisions as to whether you are allowed to breed or even if you are allowed to live will be decided at their whim.