COVID19: Philanthropy and Preparedness

            We were not prepared for this outbreak. All around the country, there are shortages of cleaning supplies, toiletries, and other necessities. There are also shortages in the medical field including shortages of doctors, face masks and other personal protective equipment, testing kits, and intensive care beds. People are panicking, buying and hoarding way more supplies than they need. Other people are trying to profit off the pandemic by selling things like hand sanitizer for outrageous amounts of money. Most people are suffering. Suffering because they can’t go to work. Suffering because they do not have substantial savings. Suffering because they have a lot of debt. Suffering because they’re 401ks are crashing along with the stock market. Suffering because they can’t afford health insurance. Crises like this highlight the fragility of many peoples’ economic situation in this country. They highlight the enormous inequality in our country and the absurdity of our healthcare system. They highlight the enormous distrust of our government to govern effectively and efficiently during times of crisis. They highlight the negligence of our government, which should have been prepared for an outbreak like this. We can’t go back in time, but we can learn from this outbreak and institute fundamental changes that prepare us for the next outbreak.

            Many scientists saw this coming. There have been many outbreaks in the past, such the Spanish Flu, SARS, MERS, and Ebola. New zoonotic diseases and mutations in common diseases happen often. However, we are often reactive rather than proactive when it comes to addressing these outbreaks. For example, the Ebola outbreak in Africa was tough to contain because there weren’t many hospitals or doctors around. Doctors without borders were able to come in a help contain it, but it was still a struggle. However, Ebola is only contagious once you have symptoms, and only spreads through contact with bodily fluids. Also, it mostly affected rural areas, which lowered its transmission rates. The Ebola outbreak should have served as a warning for governments to prepare for future outbreaks, but very little was done.

            The response currently needed to address this outbreak are beyond the capacity of philanthropy, but philanthropy could still be helpful. I think in a crisis like this, philanthropy at the local level could provide a lot of benefits to communities hit hardest by this outbreak. These communities require the toughest restrictions on social and economic life in order to slow the spread of the virus. Many of these changes are abrupt and it could be hard for people to get the resources they need, especially when some people decide to hoard resources. It would be good for local organizations to help in those communities, but still much of the emergency response should come from the federal and state governments. Philanthropy, however, could be used in other ways. Philanthropy is often used in the short term, for disaster relief and fulfilling urgent needs, but it could also be used for the long term, like having resources on hand for emergencies or funding research that could help lessen the effect of these crises. Charities could shift some of there focus to advocacy, since the world’s problems are getting too big for charities to handle. Right now, COVID19 is causing a lot of economic upheaval. COVID19’s effects are both short and long term, but we will recover from it. However, there are problems that will have even worse effects that we still need to address, the main one being climate change. Philanthropy aimed at addressing climate change like Jeff Bezos’ donation won’t help much but advocating for governments to change their policies towards the environment might. I think the coronavirus should serve as a wake-up call to everyone that normalcy is not guaranteed and that preventative measures, in this case and in the case of climate change, will save more money than they would cost. Life will eventually go back to normal in the next year or two, but we can’t get too comfortable. We must work on fixing our healthcare system, reducing the enormous inequality in the country, canceling student debt, addressing the greed of the pharmaceutical companies, switching to clean energy, and more. We are not fully safe, and we will have to make substantial changes to government policy and our lifestyles in order to ensure that our planet can keep on living.