One of the first stories we read this year was The Comet by W.E.B. Du Bois, and looking back on it now, I think we can draw some parallels to our current COVID-19 predicament.
The first thing I want to address is how ignorant humans were in both The Comet and our current Corona-virus crisis. In both situations, not only did we know about the potential threat long before it became a major problem, but we also barely did anything about it. In The Comet, the people are laughing and joking about going through the Comets tale around noon, and think nothing of the potential outgassing of the comet (Outgassing is when a Comet releases gas into a tail). From the text, it seems that the people have gone through the Haley comet's tail before without problems, and assume that this pass through will be the same. So instead of all sheltering for the day or wearing gas masks, everyone is up and about when New York City gets gassed and they all die.
For our Corona virus crisis, we were also incredibly slow to respond. Firstly, China waited a few weeks before locking down even after they knew of the virus, allowing the virus to spread to other provinces and eventually the rest of the globe. Secondly, even after China locked down 10% of the worlds population, it took the United states 2 months to enact any pandemic measures. The first confirmed cases in Washington were literally the results of a scientist going rogue against orders to find out for herself. In both these situations, whether it was out of ignorance, or lack of scientific data, preventative measures that could have been taken were disregarded, and mayhem followed.
A key difference to note is that while the sudden death of nearly everyone in The Comet is near irrecoverable for the foreseeable future, Corona-virus should be over soon^tm. Even the worst case scenarios seem to be over by summer of 2021. Although then we'll be stuck in an economic recession so that kinda sucks.
Another more morbid parallel is how screwed New York City is. Literally the entire city save for 2 people were killed when earth passed through the gas tail in The Comet, and as the current epicenter for Corona virus in the USA, New York City has not been treated well.
