We are all winners and losers now
Look up into the glorious, blue skies of Malta. Not a single cloud to be seen. And not even a single plane’s vapour trail. Birds chirp, spring flowers pop up everywhere in multi-coloured abundance. Emptied of all industrial activity, nature in Europe arose as powerful as ever. The biggest polluters went mute. Transport slowed to a trickle, smokestacks turned cold. And while electricity consumption of households everywhere in Europe went up by a third, its demand for energy has halved.
The biggest slump in economic activity since the 1930s – in certain aspects even more devastating than the Great Depression – has upended all our assumptions of continuous prosperity. Our jobs are now divided into essential and non-essential tasks. Those who take care of our physical health – nurses, doctors, carers, hospital workers – trying their utmost to keep us at bay from painful death, are certainly more appreciated than ever.
Having scolded a young woman for putting 30 rolls of toilet paper in her shopping trolley, she looked at me and made me eat my words: “I work day and night with corona patients and have not been out shopping for the last three weeks, sorry for appearing so...