CORONA CRISIS - WHAT TO LEARN FROM IT

My special comments today will reflect upon what we all perhaps can and should learn from this world-wide crisis:


1.      Politics:   perhaps political parties who are normally in almost permanent dispute can learn to work closer together. Example:  in Belgium the political parties have now negotiated for ten months about a new government – without success. But now there is a large majority in parliament for supporting the present provisional government under P.M. Sophie Wilmès to go on for six months and with a strong mandate to fight the corona-virus, also if necessary with decrees without going through parliament.


2.      EU: many people ask, why the EU is not mobilising all its forces to combat the virus. The answer is simple:  EU does not have competence in the health sector – or very few.  This is a national competence.  Perhaps it is worth thinking about whether this is the best way to organise ourselves.


3.      Health experts:  Perhaps it is also an idea to reflect upon this question:  isn’t is better in the future to listen to the health experts when possible closure of borders is concerned than just reacting according to old political instincts?


4.      Pollution:  You can today from satellites measure that the pollution over China and over Northern Italy is considerable lower than before the crisis. We all know why.  But perhaps there are important lessons to learn from that too?


5.      Working and studying from home:  We will now get a lot of experience all over the world on how working from home and studying from home can be organised and still be efficient.  Perhaps this experience can be used to make part of it more permanent – just a couple of days a week, perhaps. It would have an important impact on pollution, traffic jams, waste of time for thousands of people, etc.


6.      Solidarity:  We now see very interesting initiatives where people help each other, such as the hew Network of Volunteers created by the Danish Red Cross ( see yesterday ).  There is also assistance across borders with equipment and experiences.  We do not need laws and regulations to show solidarity.  Important lessons also for the future.

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