Wuhan isn't Nineveh
Claudewell S. Thomas, MD, MPH, DLFAPA, is an established psychiatrist who is currently retired ,, He received his medical degree in 1956 at SUNY Downstate College of Medicine and specializes in social psychiatry, public health psychiatry, and forensic psychiatry. Dr. Thomas was board certified by the American Board of Psychiatry... more
WHO has decided that the coronavirus pandemic in Wuhan and at least five and probably eight other Chinese cities is an epidemic in China, an evolving epidemic worldwide and a global threat. Apparently, this designation allows airlines to cancel flights to Chinese cities, possibly to China itself with sponsoring governmental sanction. The USA whose leadership has declared global warming and climate change as "mostly a hoax" has forbidden travel to China for its citizens, except under extreme circumstances for which other countries transports would have to be used. In the time of ancient Nineveh transport was by camel, donkey and horse. Recreational travel, if at all existent, was the prerogative of royalty and extraordinary wealth and required the accompaniment of small armies for protection.
Persia with its showpiece of Nineveh may have been toppled by Assyria with the aid of climate change desertification. China has declared intention to dominate the world of the future as it once dominated its part of the world three thousand years ago. But small nations with nuclear capabilities have largely removed war from the game table via the principle of mutually assured destruction. Domination must exist in the context of cooperation and a shared 'definition of the situation' in the words of W. I. Thomas.
The threat of Coronavirus, Saar, Ebola, influenza, Tuberculosis, Measles, Addiction, Human Trafficking, etc., should make us cognizant of the role poverty plays in the proliferation of distress. Issues concerning distribution including population control will be of greater importance than in the world of ancient Nineveh. We have evolved a first principle of problem solving via a "throw money at it" attitude. But problems emerge that are hidden in the swirl of dollars. For example, helicopters flying without FAA (no jurisdiction) or NFTB recommendation. The helicopter crash that killed Kobe Bryant and his daughter was flying with a terrain identifier with the sophistication of my drive by wire android phone position locator. The significance of the Lolita Express is obscured by the money surrounding it and when inevitably discovered is likely to overshadow the horror of the trafficking of the poor. Certainly, the use of heroin recreationally is supportable with sufficient money while the use of fentanyl or Methamphetamine is not.
