We’re All on This Sick Planet Together

Tuesday, the Centers for Disease Control warned that the United States should brace itself for a widespread outbreak of the novel coronavirus, known as COVID-19. “It’s not so much of a question of if this will happen anymore but rather more of a question of exactly when this will happen,” National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases Director Dr. Nancy Messonnier told reporters yesterday. “We are asking the American public to prepare for the expectation that this might be bad.” Wall Street was responsive, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average had tumbled nearly 900 points by the end of the day.

Tourists in the sinking city of Venice wear masks against the coronavirus. 

Exploiting crisis is a common move in politics, especially on the right. And in reactions to the current coronavirus outbreak worldwide, there’s already a pattern emerging. French National Rally party head Marine Le Pen and the League Party’s Matteo Salvini, of Italy—right-wing opposition leaders polling well against their countries’ centrist governments—have begun using the coronavirus’s spread as a platform to advocate long-held closed-border policies they hope will endear them to panicked voters. In Italy, where there are now well over 200 confirmed cases, Salvini called to “make our borders armor-plated” and criticized the government for allowing an NGO rescue ship with 276 African migrants aboard to dock; of the two confirmed cases in Africa, one came from an Italian who flew to Algeria. There are now two confirmed cases in France, where Le Pen urges suspending Europe’s Schengen Zone, which allows free passage within the customs union. 

Read the story from The New Republic by Kate Aronoff - “We’re All on This Sick Planet Together.”