The Economist 04Apr2020

12 The EconomistApril 4th 2020

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Letters

Coronavirus as a weapon

One aspect has been ignored in

The Economist’s and the wider

media coverage of covid-19: the

national security implications

(“The lockdown and the long

haul”, March 21st). The rapid

spread of the virus in Europe

and North America and the

somewhat confused and errat-

ic response of governments

demonstrates how unprepared

we are to respond to the threat

of biological warfare, despite

spending hundreds of billions

of dollars on defence.

Drawing on lessons learned

from this pandemic, govern-

ments should enact legislation

that will help us respond to

future emergencies. In addi-

tion we could stockpile essen-

tial equipment such as por-

table hospitals and testing kits

to help public health systems

respond effectively. In the

context of defence spending,

these measures are not partic-

ularly expensive. For example,

the latest American aircraft-

carrier cost $13bn. Perhaps this

money could have been better

spent preparing us for future

bio-warfare threats.

There is no question in my

mind that malicious groups

are watching this situation

with great interest and may be

considering how to take ad-

vantage of our weaknesses.

robert morley

Former staff member on the

National Security Council

Richmond, Texas

For comparison, the global

influenza pandemic of 1918-

infected up to 500m people

and killed up to 50m. Today we

are light years away from these

figures and will not reach them

because of the global advances

in medical research that our

technology enables.

What remains inexplicable

is how America, the world’s

powerhouse, can have been so

ill-prepared. All reliable evi-

dence demonstrates that it is

near the bottom of Western

countries for testing. The

federal Centres for Disease

Control and Prevention was

inept in dealing with what was

coming. The system of checks

and balances is supposed to

ensure that even if a president

does not realise the gravity of a

situation, institutions like the

cdcare ready to spring into

action. Thecdc’s delayed

response may be the gravest

mistake so far in combating

covid-19 worldwide.

george rousseau

Emeritus professor of history

Oxford University

Theimfand the World Bank

have made $62bn in funding

available to combat covid-19.

Yet funding for malaria is only

half of the $6bn that the World

Health Organisation requests

each year. I understand the fear

of this coronavirus, but malar-

ia infects 228m people each

year and kills 400,000. Per-

haps if we rebrand malaria as a

new phenomenon it will make

the headlines and get the fund-

ing it deserves.

rachel zweig

Fayetteville, Arkansas

I would like to suggest the use

of “physical distancing” rather

than “social distancing”. As a

sociologist I am stunned at the

many ways people have

overcome social distancing

while having to keep a physical

distance.

professor patrick kenis

School of Economics and

Management

Tilburg University

Tilburg, Netherlands

Not so happy with Evo

In Bolivia we are certainly

enjoying the bouquet of free-

dom after 14 years of Evo

Morales (Bello, March 7th). The

former president never “used

natural-gas revenues to build

schools, roads and clinics”.

Instead, he built football fields

with synthetic grass. Today

Bolivia is going through a dire

public-health situation pre-

cisely because of the lack of

hospitals and medical equip-

ment in rural areas.

Bolivia under Mr Morales

was a dysfunctional democra-

cy that squandered the money

it earned from commodities in

a blend of corruption,

pharaonic projects and short-

term social programmes.

Those revenues vanished in

scandals and vanity projects.

Mr Morales built a museum for

himself to exhibit his sports

outfits. He erected a lavish

building that destroyed the

colonial aesthetic of the histor-

ic centre of La Paz and named it

the House of the People,

emulating Nicolae Ceausescu

in Romania. The largest eco-

nomic boom became the great-

est missed opportunity in

Bolivian history.

jaime aparicio

Ambassador of Bolivia to the

Organisation of American

States

Washington, DC

This sporting life

Your leader lamenting the

cancellation of sports fixtures

referred to the Romans who

understood the importance of

bread and circuses, “keeping

the public not just fed, but

entertained, too” (“The game’s

the thing”, March 21st). But

although our modern colise-

ums lie dormant, e-sports

beckon like never before. La

Liga, Spain’s top-tier football

league, recently held an online

tournament using eaSports’

fifa20 video game. Some

170,000 people tuned in to

watch a player with Real

Madrid win the final. That’s

more than double the capacity

of Madrid’s Santiago Bernabéu

stadium. The biggest obstacle

to game streaming has been

the inability of the sporting

establishment to recognise its

huge reach. The business

world may now finally wake up

to its potential, not just to

augment but enhance the

world of sports entertainment.

jonny shaw

Chief strategy officer

VCCP New York

Kudos to The Economistfor

supporting the morale-boost-

ing potential of the return of

professional sport, albeit in a

reduced capacity. In 2012 I

watched a distant Champions

League final between Chelsea

and Bayern Munich, having

just fought in my first battle in

Afghanistan with the British

army. A sporting event has

enormous normalising power.

Occasionally, as today, life

throws up challenges that

ensure you never again take

the small things for granted.

robin lyon

London

On the straight and narrow

The construction of artificial

barriers to restrict the flow of

rivers and protect land (“Put-

ting the wiggles back in rivers”,

March 7th) was widespread in

the late 19th and early 20th

centuries. This was particular-

ly the case for alpine rivers in

U-shaped glacial valleys,

which carry large amounts of

sediment after heavy rainfall.

Two such rivers came to public

attention in the 1920s and

1930s. James Joyce even alluded

to these rivers as “burst” in

“Finnegans Wake”.

The first was the Thur with

its source in the Swiss Alps

flowing through the Zurich

Canton that Joyce lived in. The

second was the Waiho flowing

out of the Southern Alps of

New Zealand near Greymouth.

One of Joyce’s sisters lived in

the Greymouth convent and

sent pieces of local interest to

her brother that he occasional-

ly used, albeit creatively but

recognisably in “Finnegans

Wake”. Both rivers have caused

destructive flooding after their

flows were constrained and

slowed a century ago,

exacerbating problems caused

by large deposits of gravel

accumulated over time.

gerald smith

Wellington, New Zealand

Fungus fun

“A little lichen relief” (March

21st) notes that Iceland, Scot-

land and the Faroe Islands have

issued stamps depicting

lichen, giving their people a

lichen likeness, one might say.

I must, however, ask: do they

like licking lichen?

keith snider

Alexandria, Virginia