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The current virus that is disrupting our lives so profoundly is not as deadly as the black death or Spanish flu, but it is scary enough and has exposed many faults in our modern existence. We, as a species, learn lessons slowly and sometimes not at all. If we did (or, through sheer incompetence, do) nothing at all, eventually the majority of the population will be exposed and contract COVID-19. Given the state of our resources, upwards of 2% of the population will die therefrom, mostly the elderly and infirm (which, I think, describes most of us here at RR). This is not hyperbole or fearmongering. It just describes reality.
I don't think we'll get there, because the competent will force themselves into the fray and take measures. That is already happening despite the administration's efforts to undermine them. I think the vast majority of the voting population has now gotten an object lesson in the reality of Trump's incompetence and the dangers imposed therefrom. Whether that lesson will carry forward to the fall is still to be learned. Significant and largely irreparable damage has already been done, and will reverberate for a generation.
I expect, like 9/11 and the crashes of 1987 and 2008, we'll "get over it," eventually, and learn virtually nothing from it. We'll return to our bad habits of thinking and behavior and be as unprepared for the next crisis as this one. It's the human (and, particularly, the American) condition. Eventually, though hopefully not in my lifetime, it will prove the end of us as a species. See how optimistic I remain?
