“
P.S. This book was written in a pre-COVID world. The 2020 of Minnie and Quinn’s world now exists only in some parallel universe. Whatever the year ahead might bring for us all, let’s keep reading. Books free us from isolation. Stories unite us. We’ve all had to play in one-player mode for a while—but we’re all still in this game together.
”
”
Sophie Cousens (This Time Next Year)
“
This virus will leave us entirely newborn people. We will all be different, none of us will ever be the same again. We will have deeper roots, be made of denser soil, and our eyes will have seen things.
”
”
C. JoyBell C.
“
The world needs huge positive energy to fight against the negative forces. Go to the center of your inner begin and generate that positive energy for the welfare of the humanity.
”
”
Amit Ray (World Peace: The Voice of a Mountain Bird)
“
Hegel wrote that the only thing we can learn from history is that we learn nothing from history, so I doubt the epidemic will make us any wiser.
”
”
Slavoj Žižek (Pandemic!: COVID-19 Shakes the World)
“
We have a chance to do something extraordinary. As we head out of this pandemic we can change the world. Create a world of love. A world where we are kind to each other. A world were we are kind no matter what class, race, sexual orientation, what religion or lack of or what job we have. A world we don't judge those at the food bank because that may be us if things were just slightly different. Let love and kindness be our roadmap.
”
”
Johnny Corn
“
Individuals reduced to the panic of mere survival are ideal subjects for the introduction of authoritarian power.
”
”
Slavoj Žižek (Pandemic!: COVID-19 Shakes the World)
“
The coronavirus pandemic is going to be the biggest event of our lifetime. Bigger than 9/11. As if 9/11 happened in every city on earth at the same time.
”
”
Oliver Markus Malloy (Inside The Mind of an Introvert: Comics, Deep Thoughts and Quotable Quotes (Malloy Rocks Comics Book 1))
“
The eventuality of a global pandemic was certain, leaving uncertain only the timing and impact.
”
”
Roger Spitz (Disrupt With Impact: Achieve Business Success in an Unpredictable World)
“
It's literally a new world now, so either we adapt to it collectively as one species or only the privileged healthy will be left to live. And the only way to adapt to a new world is to keep working through mistakes, failures and changes, driven by a sense of community.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar
“
God is not up there - God is right here - in you, in me, in each one of us.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Monk Meets World)
“
The simple fact is that Donald is fundamentally incapable of acknowledging the suffering of others. Telling the stories of those we’ve lost would bore him. Acknowledging the victims of COVID-19 would be to associate himself with their weakness, a trait his father taught him to despise. Donald can no more advocate for the sick and dying than he could put himself between his father and Freddy. Perhaps most crucially, for Donald there is no value in empathy, no tangible upside to caring for other people. David Corn wrote, “Everything is transactional for this poor broken human being. Everything.” It is an epic tragedy of parental failure that my uncle does not understand that he or anybody else has intrinsic worth.
”
”
Mary L. Trump (Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man)
“
[...] now is the time to drop the “America (or whoever else) First” motto. As Martin Luther King put it more than half a century ago: “We may have all come on different ships, but we’re in the same boat now.
”
”
Slavoj Žižek (Pandemic! COVID-19 Shakes the World)
“
the out-of-control COVID-19 pandemic, the possibility of an economic depression, deepening social divides along political lines thanks to Donald’s penchant for division, and devastating uncertainty about our country’s future have created a perfect storm of catastrophes that no one is less equipped than my uncle to manage.
”
”
Mary L. Trump (Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man)
“
In the post-Covid world, the mathematics of chaos theory will experience a greater relevancy as it is applied across a broader set of science disciplines, especially epidemiology, precision medicine and climate science. - Tom Golway
”
”
Tom Golway
“
New Year's Prayer
Dear Lord, bless the soil we walk on, and heal the sick. Allow us clarity in our moments of doubt. Give us the strength to reach our hands out to anyone in need. May we embrace each other as our brothers or sisters in Christ. Across our country, and around the world let there be pure love without a second thought. In Jesus name. Amen.
”
”
Ron Baratono
“
All that today's World suffers,
is not just from Covid, but,
from the words one utters
without any forethought.
”
”
Ajitha Amarnath (AMARANTHINE THOUGHTS: a collection of my insightful quotes and lockdown musings)
“
Awake and Arise my sisters and brothers to slogan for all of humankind. We are the light and we are the might that's needed during this ominous tide.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Mad About Humans: World Maker's Almanac)
“
The power of biological weapons is ten times more than the nuclear power. Unless we act fast with an open mind, any one of them can extinct the human race.
”
”
Amit Ray (Nuclear Weapons Free World - Peace on the Earth)
“
Andrew Cuomo, the governor of New York and currently the de facto leader of the country’s COVID-19 response, has committed not only the sin of insufficiently kissing Donald’s ass but the ultimate sin of showing Donald up by being better and more competent, a real leader who is respected and effective and admired.
”
”
Mary L. Trump (Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man)
“
This book was started during the first wave of COVID pandemic, when pictures of bodies loaded into refrigerated trucks were coming out of New York. It came about because an ICU nurse emailed us and asked us to post something, anything, because reading our work on her short break between grueling shifts kept her sane.
”
”
Ilona Andrews (Blood Heir (Aurelia Ryder, #1; World of Kate Daniels, #13))
“
And yet when unvaccinated people became ill with Covid, many of the people who claimed to have been appalled by their callousness talked about how maybe they didn’t deserve health care, or told bad jokes (which were not always jokes) about how perhaps Covid would rid the world of stupid people, or went as far as French president Emmanuel Macron, who said that unvaccinated people were not full citizens. We defined ourselves against each other and yet were somehow becoming ever more alike, willing to declare each other non-people.
”
”
Naomi Klein (Doppelganger: a Trip into the Mirror World)
“
Many, but by no means all of us, have been shielded until now from the worst effects of his pathologies by a stable economy and a lack of serious crises. But the out-of-control COVID-19 pandemic, the possibility of an economic depression, deepening social divides along political lines thanks to Donald’s penchant for division, and devastating uncertainty about our country’s future have created a perfect storm of catastrophes that no one is less equipped than my uncle to manage. Doing
”
”
Mary L. Trump (Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man)
“
The world is going through a period of crisis, but whether we look at it as a crisis or as an opportunity to reshape our thinking, depends on us. So use this period as a lesson on how to live life with a concern for all of humankind.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar
“
World in Peril (The Sonnet)
The world is in peril and security is out of the window.
If now we don't be humans, what's the point of us!
Humankind is in turmoil and anxiety is running amok.
If now we don’t be responsible what's the point of us!
Neighborhoods are wailing in fear and desperation.
If now we don’t lend a hand what's the point of us!
Communities are struggling in crippling uncertainty.
If now we don't break narrowness what's the point of us!
Nations are panting to sustain health and sanity.
If now we don't rush to rescue what's the point of us!
Nature is revolting to reclaim her kingdom.
If now we don't make peace with her what's the point of us!
Now is not the time for theorizing and criticizing.
Forgetting argumentation we must stand as one people unbending.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Mad About Humans: World Maker's Almanac)
“
COVID-19's forcing the whole world to transition - from 'becoming to being'!
Isn’t it amazing? Don’t you see what’s happening? The whole world has surrendered; it has been forced, in fact, to capitulate – to jump off the becoming treadmill, to being home, just being!
”
”
AVIS Viswanathan
“
Many of our beliefs and assumptions about what the world could or should look like will be shattered in the process.
”
”
Klaus Schwab (COVID-19: The Great Reset)
“
I can do nothing about the world and the flames beyond leaving free masks in the fruit stand, but the part in which we're trapped is joy itself.
”
”
Ann Patchett (Tom Lake)
“
The real festival is the moment when we wipe the tears off from the faces living in despair.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (When Call The People: My World My Responsibility)
“
Even the most stubborn darkness fades away in front of one tiny flame.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (When Call The People: My World My Responsibility)
“
I wish we changed before we had to. COVID-19 brought so many changes to the world that will benefit everyone. We needed the wake-up call.
”
”
Farshad Asl
“
I think there is only one way the Covid-19 pandemic is gonna end: The immune will live. The rest will die. We might lose a 5th of the world population.
”
”
Oliver Markus Malloy (American Fascism: A German Writer's Urgent Warning To America)
“
But someday soon,
things will open up.
Get back to normal.
Kids around the world,
will be free again.
Then you will see,
All of your friends,
Your family,
And everyone.
Someday soon.
”
”
Ari Gunzburg (Someday Soon)
“
Put in simple terms, in a post-pandemic world beset by unemployment, insufferable inequalities and angst about the environment, the ostentatious display of wealth will no longer be acceptable.
”
”
Klaus Schwab (COVID-19: The Great Reset)
“
We may be comfortably living in our apartments or houses. We may not be getting affected by hunger during this time of despair. But there are so many people out there who may not have eaten a proper meal in the last few days. The turmoil caused by the COVID 19 pandemic is playing havoc in the lives of millions of people from all around the world. We are all in this together. We all can do our bit. Let's feed the hungry and help the less fortunate among us. Together we can make this world a better place.
”
”
Avijeet Das
“
today, those of us who still recognize ourselves as Communists, are liberals with a diploma—liberals who seriously studied why our liberal values are under threat and became aware that only a radical change can save them.
”
”
Slavoj Žižek (Pandemic!: COVID-19 Shakes the World)
“
As everything we do in this world, be it work, business, politics or relationships, it is through humans, and we may still be successful if we understand and use the basic laws governing human nature and behavior to our advantage.
”
”
Abhishek Ratna (small wins BIG SUCCESS: A handbook for exemplary success in post Covid19 Outbreak Era)
“
The hermit escapes the human world
and likes to sleep on mountains
among green widely-spaced vines
where clear torrents sing harmonies.
He steams with joy,
swinging at ease through freedom,
not stained with worldly affairs,
heart clean as a white lotus.
”
”
Hanshan
“
The really difficult thing to accept is the fact that the ongoing epidemic is a result of natural contingency at its purest, that it just happened and hides no deeper meaning. In the larger order of things, we are just a species with no special importance.
”
”
Slavoj Žižek (Pandemic!: COVID-19 Shakes the World)
“
We will come out of this storm. In the coming days, we have to stay calm and confident. And for sure, we will overcome this moment of despair. How long this will last cannot be ascertained. But the one thing that we can be sure of is that we will not be the same anymore. Hopefully, we would have changed for the better. This is the way of life This is how life teaches us its lessons.
”
”
Avijeet Das
“
Dear God,
Never has the entire world lived with so much uncertainty, and fear. We asked that you cleanse our planet dear God of this awful virus. We ask our leaders see, with your blessing, that working together, and being dedicated to each other peacefully, for the common good is the only way to set us on the path of global healing, physically and emotionally. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.
”
”
Ron Baratono
“
Covid-19 displaced tuberculosis as the world’s deadliest infectious disease from 2020 through 2022, but in 2023, TB regained the status it has held for most of what we know of human history. Killing 1,250,000 people, TB once again became our deadliest infection.
”
”
John Green (Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection)
“
In his airport bestseller from 2018, Enlightenment Now, Steven Pinker, the leading voice in the choir of bourgeois optimism, revelled in the ‘conquest of infectious disease’ all over the globe – Europe, America, but above all the developing countries – as proof that ‘a rich world is a healthier world’, or, in transparent terms, that a world under the thumb of capital is the best of all possible worlds. ‘ “Smallpox was an infectious disease” ’, Pinker read on Wikipedia – ‘yes, “smallpox was” ’; it exists no more, and the diseases not yet obliterated are being rapidly decimated. Pinker closed the book on the subject by confidently predicting that no pandemic would strike the world in the foreseeable future. Had he cared to read the science, he would have known that waves from a rising tide were already crashing against the fortress he so dearly wished to defend.
He could, for instance, have opened the pages of Nature, where a team of scientists in 2008 analysed 335 outbreaks of ‘emerging infectious diseases’ since 1940 and found that their number had ‘risen significantly over time’.
”
”
Andreas Malm (Corona, Climate, Chronic Emergency: War Communism in the Twenty-First Century)
“
Dear Public Health Officials: With 68% of the world’s population vaccinated and 13-billion doses administered, if the vaccines are safe and effective, how do you explain that the overwhelming number of COVID deaths –and all the highest peaks in deaths– occurred after commencement of mass vaccination?
”
”
Ed Dowd ("Cause Unknown": The Epidemic of Sudden Deaths in 2021 & 2022)
“
The naming of a virus is a controversial matter. In 1832, cholera advanced from British India toward Europe. It was called ‘Asiatic Cholera’. The French felt that since they were democratic, they would not succumb to a disease of authoritarianism; but France was ravaged by cholera, which was as much about the bacteria as it is about the state of hygiene inside Europe and North America. (When cholera struck the United States in 1848, the Public Bathing Movement was born.)
The ‘Spanish Flu’ was only named after Spain because it came during World War I when journalism in most belligerent countries was censored. The media in Spain, not being in the war, widely reported the flu, and so that pandemic took the name of the country. In fact, evidence showed that the Spanish Flu began in the United States in a military base in Kansas where the chickens transmitted the virus to soldiers. It would then travel to British India, where 60 percent of the casualties of that pandemic took place. It was never named the ‘American Flu’ and no Indian government has ever sought to recover costs from the United States because of the animal-to-human transmission that happened there.
”
”
Vijay Prashad
“
The world is mine, its problems are mine.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Monk Meets World)
“
The core thing in this world that can make you successful in life is your mind, your effective use of it, and your follow-through on the good ideas it generates you.
”
”
Abhishek Ratna (small wins BIG SUCCESS: A handbook for exemplary success in post Covid19 Outbreak Era)
“
The world is networked, and it takes a network to run a network.
”
”
Debora MacKenzie (Stopping the Next Pandemic: How Covid-19 Can Help Us Save Humanity)
“
Carlo Ginzburg proposed the notion that being ashamed of one's country, not love of it, may be the true mark of belonging to it
”
”
Slavoj Žižek (Pandemic! COVID-19 Shakes the World)
“
Do you find it strange that the world’s healthcare systems are saying they do not understand Long COVID and how to treat it?
”
”
Steven Magee
“
Global Health Security Index,” a sober report of a world largely unprepared to deal with a pandemic.
”
”
Lawrence Wright (The Plague Year: America in the Time of Covid)
“
Treatments save lives,” Schuitemaker liked to tell colleagues in Crucell’s offices in the Dutch city of Leiden. “But vaccines save populations.
”
”
Gregory Zuckerman (A Shot to Save the World: The Inside Story of the Life-or-Death Race for a COVID-19 Vaccine)
“
Mice lie, monkeys mislead, and ferrets are weasels. —a popular aphorism among scientists
”
”
Gregory Zuckerman (A Shot to Save the World: The Inside Story of the Life-or-Death Race for a COVID-19 Vaccine)
“
By one count, the Covid-19 vaccines helped prevent 279,000 deaths and averted up to 1.25 million additional hospitalizations, as of summer 2021.5
”
”
Gregory Zuckerman (A Shot to Save the World: The Inside Story of the Life-or-Death Race for a COVID-19 Vaccine)
“
You go through life hoping to have a chance to make a difference,” says Smith. “I’m just grateful to have the strength left to have an impact.
”
”
Gregory Zuckerman (A Shot to Save the World: The Inside Story of the Life-or-Death Race for a COVID-19 Vaccine)
“
Billions of dollars in profits that have resulted for some of those pursuing mRNA research will likely bring more talent, financing, and improvements in the field.
”
”
Gregory Zuckerman (A Shot to Save the World: The Inside Story of the Life-or-Death Race for a COVID-19 Vaccine)
“
While the world has been on COVID-19 lock down, good things have been happening in the background that will eventually be revealed.
”
”
Steven Magee
“
We grieve for our old lives, when we could see friends face to face without worrying one of us might bring death to the other.
”
”
Nicole Williams (RISE UP: Believing God When the World is Falling Apart)
“
In October 2020, President Trump proved to the world that he should have worn a mask and socially distanced by contracting ‘China Virus’.
”
”
Steven Magee
“
The pandemic’s mandatory lockdown has set in motion an array of economic, political and global instabilities.
”
”
Asa Don Brown
“
The irony is that people are surviving lockdown thanks to the arts. For centuries, the task of washing clothes has been made more bearable by singing.
”
”
Ilan Stavans (And We Came Outside and Saw the Stars Again: Writers from Around the World on the COVID-19 Pandemic)
“
We have recorded the sound the wind makes on Mars, but we cannot listen to one another.…
”
”
Ilan Stavans (And We Came Outside and Saw the Stars Again: Writers from Around the World on the COVID-19 Pandemic)
“
This pandemic seems to me not unlike my mother’s cancer: a threat, a warning, a reminder for society. Whether, like my mother, we ignore its import, is up to each one of
”
”
Ilan Stavans (And We Came Outside and Saw the Stars Again: Writers from Around the World on the COVID-19 Pandemic)
“
Don't let them blind you. It isn't only a disease. But COVID 19 is the world war 3 started by them.
”
”
Joshua seguya
“
Every time there is darkness most foul,
I will burn to bring light, sight and might.
Every time there is misery unbound,
I will churn my soul to outpour delight.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (When Call The People: My World My Responsibility)
“
The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) has taken the world by storm.
”
”
Asa Don Brown
“
The most prudent thing that people can do at this time, is to take commonsense approaches to reduce your risk of exposure.
”
”
Asa Don Brown
“
Nature is revolting to reclaim her kingdom. If now we don't make peace with her what's the point of us!
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Mad About Humans: World Maker's Almanac)
“
We are, or will be, going through the most radical transformation the world has ever seen; people are justly terrified, excited, depressed, heartbroken and hopeful, all at once.
”
”
Heather Marsh (The Creation of Me, Them and Us)
“
Even when the whole world is behind closed doors right now, but our hearts will remain open. The streets are silent but our love will never be silent for each other. #covid-19
”
”
Jawedquotes
“
We are the source of humaneness, as well as the vessel of humaneness.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Mad About Humans: World Maker's Almanac)
“
Forgetting argumentation we must stand as one people unbending.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Mad About Humans: World Maker's Almanac)
“
Debemos asegurarnos de que todos nos apoyamos mutuamente y que todos superemos esta catástrofe juntos, sin dejar a nadie atrás.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Mad About Humans: World Maker's Almanac)
“
In four months, COVID-19 shut down the world’s economies.
”
”
Steven Magee
“
The human race was ill-prepared for such a calamity of events to unfold.
”
”
Asa Don Brown
“
It is not only my heart that is heavy-laden, but the hearts and minds of so many who have been burdened by the tragedies, bloodshed, and woes of our time.
”
”
Asa Don Brown
“
COVID 19 is the Biggest challenge for science
But it is the biggest Exam for Humanity.
Our People are dying, it's not in our hands
But it's in our hands, don't let Pandemic Kill Humanity
”
”
Mohammed Zaki Ansari ("Zaki's Gift Of Love")
“
His ambitions raised the tantalizing prospect that the horrors wrought by the deadly coronavirus could, in an indirect way, help vanquish some of the cruelest diseases known to humankind.
”
”
Gregory Zuckerman (A Shot to Save the World: The Inside Story of the Life-or-Death Race for a COVID-19 Vaccine)
“
The central lesson of the COVID-19 fiscal response is that money is not scarce. Without delay, governments around the world appropriated budgets that dwarfed any other post-war crisis policy.
”
”
Pavlina R. Tcherneva (Modern Monetary Theory: Key Insights, Leading Thinkers (The Gower Initiative for Modern Money Studies))
“
This might explain why the conspiratorial claims in the Mirror World so often seem to contradict one another. For this new political configuration, convincing people of their unproven theories was never the real point—it was only ever a tool. The point, consciously or not, is to foster denial and avoidance. The point is not to have to do hard and uncomfortable things in the face of hard and uncomfortable realities, whether Covid, or climate change, or the fact that our nations were forged in genocide and have never engaged in a remotely serious process of making repair. Denial is so much easier than looking inward, or backward, or forward; so much easier than change. But denial needs narratives, cover stories, and that is what conspiracy culture is providing.
”
”
Naomi Klein (Doppelganger: a Trip into the Mirror World)
“
That all that is wonderful in this world is frighteningly temporary and so when abundance of any kind comes, we must celebrate it, for what has saved me, what has asked me to open myself and trust in something larger, is my love for them and for their mother, for my larger family and many friends, and I want to hug my children and tell them that it’s okay, but we cannot hug, can we?
”
”
Jennifer Haupt (ALONE TOGETHER: Love, Grief, and Comfort During the Time of COVID-19)
“
The holy trinity of tackling a crisis is unity, faith and sacrifice. We must stay united as humans above all else, we must have faith in ourselves and in each other and we must sacrifice our self-obsession.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (When Call The People: My World My Responsibility)
“
The Pandemic Sonnet
This ain't the first time you've come to haunt us,
And it won't be the last either.
You thought you could break the species,
But all you did is bring us together.
You brought the world to almost a standstill,
Yet we never stood still to let inaction take over.
Each one of us did the best we could,
And we'll keep on doing till your traces wither.
We may have our differences at times,
But when trouble knocks on our door we all stand one.
We may act selfish sometimes,
But in catastrophe we refrain from helping no one.
However thanks for reminding us to leave wildlife alone,
Otherwise all we'll have left to do is mourn.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar
“
With the current #COVID19 pandemic people are talking about how connected we all are. The world has always been connected. What is changing is the velocity and scale in how events will shape our society. - Tom Golway
”
”
Tom Golway
“
...as the Covid-19 pandemic burns through us, our world is passing through a portal. We have journeyed to a place from which it looks unlikely that we can return, at least not without some kind of serious rupture from the past - social, political, economic and ideological.... Coronavirus has brought with it another, more terrible understanding of Azadi: the Free virus that has made nonsense of international borders, incarcerated whole populations and brought the modern world to a halt like nothing else ever could. It casts a different light on the lives we have lived so far. It forces us to question the values we have built modern societies on - what we have chosen to worship and what to cast aside. As we pass through this portal into another kind of world, we will have to ask ourselves what we want to take with us and what we will leave behind. We may not always have a choice - but not thinking about it will not be an option. And in order to think about it, we need an even deeper understanding of the world gone by, of the devastation we have caused to our planet and the deep injustice between fellow human beings that we have come to accept.
”
”
Arundhati Roy (Azadi: Freedom. Fascism. Fiction.)
“
Sacrifice is infectious - one person's sacrifice makes millions wake up from their sleep of indifference - and in a handful of brave and responsible beings it is bound to spark the urge to sacrifice their own lifeforce for the good of others.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Mad About Humans: World Maker's Almanac)
“
We may be comfortably living in our apartments or houses. We may not be getting affected by hunger during this time of despair. But there are so many people out there who may not have a proper meal in the last few days. The turmoil caused by the COVID 19 pandemic is playing havoc in the lives of millions of people from all around the world. We are all in this together. We all can do our bit
Let's feed the hungry and help the less fortunate among us. Together we can make the world a better place.
”
”
Avijeet Das
“
Mad Wind (The Sonnet)
Turn into a mad wind,
And blow away the rigidity.
Now the savagery must end,
To do that we must rise as almighty.
Turn into the monsoon rain,
And wash away all sickness.
Whenever a crisis arrives,
We must step up shredding all weakness.
Turn into a purifying wave,
And smoothen the thorns of argument.
Whenever rises differentiation,
We must become the bridge without bent.
The world is unstable and feeble with insecurity.
We must be its strength offering our soul as stability.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (When Call The People: My World My Responsibility)
“
It is not lost on me that these are hard times. Worse times ahead. BUT there will be a better day. A day of love. A time of peace. A time of new beginnings. Hope. A world better than the spot of bother we are in now. KNOW THAT! We do have a better tomorrow ahead.
”
”
Johnny Corn
“
The more nationalism and isolationism pervade the global polity, the greater the chance that global governance loses its relevance and becomes ineffective. Sadly, we are now at this critical juncture. Put bluntly, we live in a world in which nobody is really in charge. COVID-19 has reminded us that the biggest problems we face are global in nature. Whether it’s pandemics, climate change, terrorism or international trade, all are global issues that we can only address, and whose risks can only be mitigated, in a collective fashion.
”
”
Klaus Schwab (COVID-19: The Great Reset)
“
When the world is being
painted with dark shades
of hate and fear,
and the majority are seeing
the world as a place
of bad fate & tear...
you come out with
positive vibes & energy
and use bright colors
of love and warmth
and paint a
beautiful rainbow
of hope & good old
cheer.
”
”
Avijeet Das
“
Hyper-connected is used in the context of the Internet. COVID-19 shows we are hyper-connected in the physical world. COVID-19 is a wake-up call for the world to realize how dependent we are on each other. There will always be winners, but life doesn’t need to be a zero-sum game. - Tom Golway
”
”
Tom Golway
“
Social psychologists have likened the effects of COVID-19 to that of the great World Wars for the characteristics are all there down to the sirens and curfews; it is after all a life-altering event that has blanketed the world with uncertainty and an unfathomable restriction on personal freedoms.
”
”
Aysha Taryam
“
Although the full implications of the COVID-19 pandemic remain to be seen, it is already clear that domestic and international politics will – and must – change to prevent an even deeper disaster. We are entering a brave new world in which "big government" and international solidarity are both unavoidable.
”
”
Joschka Fischer
“
The CDC and World Health Organization, indeed all global health authorities, have recognized that healthy people, with healthy immune systems, bear minimal risk from COVID. Indeed, many people, according to our health authorities, have an immune response sufficient that they don’t even know they have COVID.
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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health)
“
We are living in the world of pandemic.
Life is not the same as it was before.
We have to choose new ways of living.
Being ignorance or in denial won’t make you immune to the virus.
Choose to be responsible and always be careful. Watch what you do, where you go and what you touch. You can practice your freedom by choosing to be safe.
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D.J. Kyos
“
How will this expanded role of governments manifest itself? A significant element of new “bigger” government is already in place with the vastly increased and quasi-immediate government control of the economy. As detailed in Chapter 1, public economic intervention has happened very quickly and on an unprecedented scale. In April 2020, just as the pandemic began to engulf the world, governments across the globe had announced stimulus programmes amounting to several trillion dollars, as if eight or nine Marshall Plans had been put into place almost simultaneously to support the basic needs of the poorest people, preserve jobs whenever possible and help businesses to survive.
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Klaus Schwab (COVID-19: The Great Reset)
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The coronavirus caused countless damages to the world, but it also created some benefits: The world is now a more mysterious, more enigmatic place with all those masked people! As if the faces disappeared, only eyes remained! As if the tongues have disappeared, only the eyes speak telepathically! We, the people of the Earth, became an Alien on Earth!
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Mehmet Murat ildan
“
While there is a real urgency for caution, there is also an overwhelming urgency for calm. My greatest concern is that the driving force of this pandemic may cause those who have no signs or symptomology to develop other chronic fears, anxieties and medical conditions. Heightened fears and anxieties will not make you feel safer. Compulsive and impulsive purchases will not protect you from the virus. It is important that you take care of your physical and mental health. Follow what your state and county are advising you to do. The sky is not falling and life will return to normal. The most prudent thing that people can do at this time, is to take commonsense approaches to reduce your risk of exposure.
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Asa Don Brown
“
This traumatic episode in history is proving to be one twisted psychological experiment on a massive scale, a testing whose effects on the mind will be studied for years to come for we know that after trauma comes the post-traumatic episodes and the world needs to be ready to help those of us who will need to be mentally supported once the worst is behind us.
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Aysha Taryam
“
A Contagion Abroad by Stewart Stafford
Overblown epidemic,
Inferno pandemic,
Death takes a vacation.
Bird flu, Bat stew,
Churning, gagging virus brew,
Man the panic stations.
Contaminate, capitulate,
Sickly state, funeral date,
A lost generation.
Depopulate, inoculate,
Virologists thwart fate,
The world's rehabilitation.
© Stewart Stafford, 2021. All rights reserved.
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Stewart Stafford
“
And at an even more general level, viral epidemics remind us of the ultimate contingency and meaninglessness of our lives: no matter how magnificent the spiritual edifices we, humanity, construct, a stupid natural contingency like a virus or an asteroid can end it all … not to mention the lesson of ecology, which is that we, humanity, can also unknowingly contribute to this end.
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Slavoj Žižek (Pandemic!: COVID-19 Shakes the World)
“
With all this hoarding, alarm, deceit, lack of information, plethora of disinformation, ambiguity, and confusion, I wonder whether it is time for us to start drafting a post-coronavirus manifesto? Perhaps it should contain all the things we don’t want the world to become after this pandemic is over. There are many alienating powers out there that thrived on keeping us quarantined, at distance, and distrustful of each other way before COVID-19. There are systems that thrive on our loneliness and fear. There are institutions dedicated to make sure that we don’t help each other so that we turn to them for help… Let’s not allow them to get their way once this pandemic is over! Let’s make sure that we create a world in which such blood suckers are not needed in the first place. Oh, my friends, let’s beware of the ways disaster capitalism is using the pandemic for its benefit.
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Louis Yako
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George Washington’s troops scraped off the scabs of the smallpox dead to inoculate themselves, but we cower in our homes in fear and obedience for a virus that is 99.6% non-fatal and is fatal mostly for people who lived four years longer than the average life span.27 Friends of mine who caught the virus and developed immunities are still treated like lepers even though there is not one single verified case of reinfection from Covid-19 in the world.
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Jeffrey Tucker (Liberty or Lockdown)
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The fact that the world is a complex system helps explain how this pandemic happened. First, it means our system has a management problem. People tend to see things in a simple linear way. That’s not a criticism—we can’t usually control anything but a few, simple, direct interactions within our complex social system. So faced with a problem, those are the solutions on offer. We cannot always anticipate how the rest of the complex system will impinge.
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Debora MacKenzie (Stopping the Next Pandemic: How Covid-19 Can Help Us Save Humanity)
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How can you be happy while the world is falling apart? The people who are resilient versus those who are not have a TLC mindset. They see what is happening as temporary, local, and with some sense of control. People who crumble in hard times tend to see the situation as permanent (things will never change) and global (it’s everywhere), and they feel as though they have no control over the situation (they feel like a victim). Here’s how I used TLC to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Amen MD Daniel G (Change Your Brain Every Day: Simple Daily Practices to Strengthen Your Mind, Memory, Moods, Focus, Energy, Habits, and Relationships)
“
The most important thing you can do to avoid misjudging the importance of something is to avoid isolated figures. Never, ever, leave a figure alone. Never believe that a figure can be significant on its own. If you are presented with a figure, always ask At least one more. Something to compare it to. Be especially careful with large figures. Funny, but figures that exceed a certain size, if not compared to something, always seem large. And how can you not be important something big?
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Hans Rosling (Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World – and Why Things Are Better Than You Think)
“
The reason for the spread of corona virus in India was made to the Muslims, whose poverty kept the Islamic Centre of Muslims hostage for several days. And they were held responsible for the spread of corona virus in inappropriate ways. Muslims are considered to be the cause of the problem. And Muslims have been made a scapegoat. India has walked on a road that has no future. India, the champion of democratic values, is moving from democracy to dictatorship. And its cloak of democracy.
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COVID-19 In India
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We are in a depression. I don't just mean economically. We are blue. It is okay to feel how you feel but don't stay there. Think about the helpers. For example a friend got me a mask. Another friend got me cleaning supplies. She just may have saved my life! I have a fan who is making masks to help people. She elsewhere in the universe. So it's everyone. We are stronger together! The whole world is feeling the same. So spread the love out there and accept that love in! This too shall pass!
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Johnny Corn
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Until COVID, I thought that free speech was a protected fundamental right guaranteed to all citizens of the United States of America by the Bill of Rights. Having been assigned core texts like 1984, Brave New World, Animal Farm, Lord of the Flies, and The Trial and Death of Socrates in fourth and fifth grade as a “gifted and talented” student in the California school system of the time, I believed there was no way anything like what was written in those books could happen here in the USA during the 21st century.
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Robert W. Malone (Lies My Gov't Told Me: And the Better Future Coming)
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If I've learned one thing in my years of studying the social impacts of disease, it's that we live in a world where we're connected, for better or worse, to the people in our human community by the microbes that we share between us. And in times of contagious disease crisis, if we fail to recognize our shared connection, we are most certainly doomed, because our fates hang together, yoked by tiny particles that threaten us all. Scores of historical figures-both famous and infamous-have taught me as much. By learning the stories of those who lived before us, by educating ourselves about the worlds they inhabited and the viruses and bacteria that lived in, with, and through them, we can learn how to emerge from the novel coronavirus pandemic stronger than ever before and well prepared for the next new disease we will inevitably face. If we don't learn from their examples, however, I foresee a world adrift, damned by alienation from its own history, a victim of self-annihilation cued, rather than caused, by the novel coronavirus.
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Kari Nixon (Quarantine Life from Cholera to COVID-19: What Pandemics Teach Us About Parenting, Work, Life, and Communities from the 1700s to Today)
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As the world watched, Tony Fauci dictated a series of policies that resulted in by far the most deaths, and one of the highest percentage COVID-19 body counts of any nation on the planet. Only relentless propaganda and wall-to-wall censorship could conceal his disastrous mismanagement during COVID-19’s first year. The US, with 4 percent of the world’s population, suffered 14.5 percent of total COVID deaths. By September 30, 2021, mortality rates in the US had climbed to 2,107/1,000,000, compared to 139/1,000,000 in Japan.
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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health)
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Many believe that the end of COVID-19 will simply arrive with the development of a vaccine. Yet a closer look at one of the central vaccine success stories of the 20th century shows that technological solutions rarely offer resolution to pandemics on their own. Contrary to our expectations, vaccines are not universal technologies. Vaccination practices and the infrastructures in place to deliver them are as diverse as the epidemic management strategies national governments follow. They are always deployed locally, with variable resources and commitments to scientific expertise.
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Hal Brands (COVID-19 and World Order: The Future of Conflict, Competition, and Cooperation)
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The catch is that, even if life does eventually return to some semblance of normality, it will not be the same normal as the one we experienced before the outbreak. Things we were used to as part of our daily life will no longer be taken for granted, we will have to learn to live a much more fragile life with constant threats. We will have to change our entire stance to life, to our existence as living beings among other forms of life. In other words, if we understand “philosophy” as the name for our basic orientation in life, we will have to experience a true philosophical revolution.
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Slavoj Žižek (Pandemic!: COVID-19 Shakes the World)
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When society felt adrift in the wake of its loss of religious belief, people turned to science as the anchor that could stabilize them. Again, this is not an argument about the importance or lack thereof of religion. It's rather a statement that humans seek frameworks by which to guide their understanding of the world, and whether they turn to religion or science or something in between, they'll find something to grasp hold of and use to make sense of an often senseless and chaotic world. In my view. we've done that with science over the last 150 years, resulting in many problematic outcomes.
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Kari Nixon (Quarantine Life from Cholera to COVID-19: What Pandemics Teach Us About Parenting, Work, Life, and Communities from the 1700s to Today)
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None of the world’s leading airlines failed to survive COVID. Yet by 2023, Qantas routinely portrayed its survival of the pandemic as a uniquely Joycean feat, while defining 100 per cent of its operational failures as symptoms of an industry-wide phenomenon. None of that is to trivialise the extraordinary injuries COVID inflicted on Qantas, or Qantas’ decisive efforts to achieve hibernation then manage through oscillating lockdowns. But rather than swallowing Joyce’s post hoc rationalisations offered in 2022 and 2023, I have relied in this book on what he actually said and did in 2020 and 2021.
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Joe Aston (The Chairman's Lounge: The inside story of how Qantas sold us out)
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This pandemic is world reset. We have a chance to change the world. What is has proven is no matter what your politics, no matter what your religion, no matter what your job status. We are all brother and sister in the world together. Human kindness has come out in so many ways. Can't buy a mask people make it for you. Don't have food, let me drop some off at your porch. Love is all around you. All you have to do is look! I think the world need a hippie right now and I am going to be a tad optimistic. Some advise from the original hippie. Love Thy Neighbor As Yourself. Let's have that as the new rule in this world reset.
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Johnny Corn
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So some hope. I am going to be honest. It's gonna get way worse. Brace yourself. BUT ALSO know there is a new tomorrow. Be grateful for everyday you are on this big blue marble because death is for a real long time. Life is brief. The world is better with you on it. Trust me when I say I understand how you feel! I understand depression. You know what helps. I say read a book or watch comedy, not mine necessarily. Just think about it. Who moves you? What comedy do you love? Not into comedy, listen to music, hell go to your porch and watch what's going on. Wild life isn't just lions and frogs but also squirrels and Birds. Like someone fun? Watch him or her or they or whomever. Look you'll get through this! Stay in together!
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Johnny Corn
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When credit cycles reach their limit, it is the logical and classic response for central governments and their central banks to create a lot of debt and print money that will be spent on goods, services, and investment assets in order to keep the economy moving. That was done during the 2008 debt crisis, when interest rates could no longer be lowered because they had already hit 0 percent. It also happened in a big way in 2020 in response to the plunge triggered by the COVID pandemic. That was also done in response to the 1929–32 debt crisis, when interest rates had similarly been driven to 0 percent. At the time I am writing this, the creation of debt and money has been happening in amounts greater than at any time since World War II.
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Ray Dalio (Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order: Why Nations Succeed and Fail)
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The rule through pandemic medical and emergency decrees is nothing more than a coup d’état on a worldwide scale and it therefore follows the same patterns, not necessarily in the same order, observed in banana republics:
First, pointing to a threat, lockdown of the borders, and restrictions of the means of transportation; checked.
Second, full control of the media; checked.
Third, declaration of a state of emergency and deployment of forces on the ground; checked.
Fourth, restrictions of assembly and civil rights; checked.
Fifth, repressive measure for those not cooperating; checked.
Sixth, changes to the figures and political scene as some go away and old ones come back; checked.
Seventh, attempt to return to normalcy; checked. - On Tyranny Through Emergency Decrees
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Lamine Pearlheart (Awakening)
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the citizens of Oran were like the rest of the world, they thought about themselves; in other words, they were humanists: they did not believe in pestilence. A pestilence does not have human dimensions, so people tell themselves that it is unreal, that it is a bad dream which will end. But it does not always end, from one bad dream to the next, it is people who end, humanists first of all because they have not prepared themselves. The people of our town were no more guilty than anyone else, they merely forgot to be modest and thought that everything was still possible for them, which implied that pestilence was impossible. They continued with business, with making arrangements for travel and holding opinions. Why should they have thought about the plague, which negates the future, negates journeys and debate? They considered themselves free and no one will ever be free as long as there is plague, pestilence and famine.
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Albert Camus (The Plague)
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I’m increasingly focused on what has been done under the guise of COVID by the World Economic Forum and its acolytes, and the logic of transhumanism and human modification. I think that if I have my way about it, that’s gonna become much more a part of the national dialogue. And there’ll be a growing awareness of the intentional infiltration of the Western democracies by the World Economic Forum, specifically its young leaders trainee program. The narrative, I think, is gonna turn more along the lines of COVID being a gross overreaction. And seeing that increasingly now, as people are talking about the overly pessimistic projections of morbidity and mortality that drove global policy and national policy information is going to become more and more common knowledge—that the stress scenarios were grossly overstated, and that threat scenario was weaponized for a variety of purposes that had nothing to do with public health.
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Steve Deace (Rise of the Fourth Reich: Confronting COVID Fascism with a New Nuremberg Trial, So This Never Happens Again)
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I lot of you have reached out to me today actually. I also checked on people too. I am concerned. A lot of you are depressed. Feeling down. Want to be able to have a break from your kids or spouse. Some of you are solo right now and are lonely. Some of you have fear. Don't have fear. This too will pass. BUT do have some common sense. Stay home. Wash your hands.
For the lonely, the safest sex you can have is no sex. BUT hey you meet someone after this you can have a topic of conversation. The apocalypse.
For those needing a break from your kids. Take a walk around the block. Maybe a few blocks. Then come back. If you can't do that, make sure they are doing their homework and then watch stand up comedy or listen to some music. Do something fun!
Look the whole world is having common experience. Just know you are healthy. Your love ones are too. Be creative. It may cheer you up I choose to have hope. Look I know you are down but we are all in this together.
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Johnny Corn
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Homer-Dixon says increasing complexity makes societies more resilient only up to a point. Connections between villages might mean one comes to the other’s aid in an attack. But as the villages become more tightly coupled, both may suffer when one is attacked. A loose network absorbs shock; a tightly coupled one transmits it. That is happening in the Covid-19 pandemic. Countries go into lockdown; people stop shopping, traveling, and producing; and the effects ricochet through a tightly coupled global economy. The global supply chains of money, materials, people, energy, and component parts that underpin industries falter and break. Airlines go under as they are not set up to weather even a temporary disappearance of travelers. Malaria worsens in Africa as insecticide and antimalarial bed net deliveries falter. Microcredit that underpins small businesses throughout the developing world defaults because payment collectors are locked down, causing ramifications throughout an economy.
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Debora MacKenzie (Stopping the Next Pandemic: How Covid-19 Can Help Us Save Humanity)
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I visited with American diplomats at the U.S. embassy just before they became entangled in the impeachment of President Donald Trump. On the day I visited, they were overwhelmed by Russia’s latest disinformation campaign: Russian trolls had been inundating Facebook pages frequented by young Ukrainian mothers with anti-vaccination propaganda. This, as the country reeled from the worst measles outbreak in modern history. Ukraine now had one of the lowest vaccination rates in the world and the Kremlin was capitalizing on the chaos. Ukraine’s outbreak was already spreading back to the States, where Russian trolls were now pushing anti-vaxxer memes on Americans. American officials seemed at a loss for how to contain it. (And they were no better prepared when, one year later, Russians seized on the pandemic to push conspiracy theories that Covid-19 was an American-made bioweapon, or a sinister plot by Bill Gates to profit off vaccines.) There seemed no bottom to the lengths Russia was willing to go to divide and conquer.
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Nicole Perlroth (This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends: The Cyberweapons Arms Race)
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A recent cross-sectional study in two states, Ohio and Florida,37 showed that the rate of death in those states was strongly associated with political party affiliation—after May 2021, when vaccines were freely available to all adults, the death rate for Republican voters was 43 percent higher than for Democratic voters. The long echo of the negative public response to COVID-19 has led to greater resistance to all forms of vaccination, putting children at risk for diseases like measles and polio that had almost been eradicated in the developed world. This may be the most consequential example of distrust of science in modern history. This circumstance is utterly contrary to the way a person or a nation should respond to a threatening pandemic: political party should be set aside in favor of clearheaded and objective assessment of the facts. But with our current separation into divisive tribal communities, the opportunity for thoughtful considerations of options—for achieving wisdom—has mostly been lost. The consequences have been truly tragic.
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Francis S. Collins (The Road to Wisdom: On Truth, Science, Faith, and Trust)
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IN OCTOBER 2019, just a few months before the novel coronavirus swept the world, Johns Hopkins University released its first Global Heath Security Index, a comprehensive analysis of countries that were best prepared to handle an epidemic or pandemic. The United States ranked first overall, and first in four of the six categories—prevention, early detection and reporting, sufficient and robust health system, and compliance with international norms. That sounded right. America was, after all, the country with most of the world’s best pharmaceutical companies, research universities, laboratories, and health institutes. But by March 2020, these advantages seemed like a cruel joke, as Covid-19 tore across the United States and the federal government mounted a delayed, weak, and erratic response. By July, with less than 5% of the world’s population, the country had over 25% of the world’s cumulative confirmed cases. Per capita daily death rates in the United States were ten times higher than in Europe. Was this the new face of American exceptionalism?
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Fareed Zakaria (Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World)
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The number of infections kept rising. By the end of March the US led the world in infections and deaths caused by the virus. What does Trump do? He refuses to wear a mask. He’s not going to look like a weakling. Testing? Overrated. It increases the number of infections. Why doesn’t the country have enough PPE and ventilators? Obama’s fault. The President is in charge, but if there’s any failure, it’s the fault of governors and mayors. He keeps repeating his mantra, “The situation is under control.” Pence’s team will whip the virus. Or was it Jared’s team? This virus isn’t as bad as the flu. America always wins. Doesn’t matter who or what the enemy is, we always triumph. We’re going to kill that little bug. Those people wearing masks are doing it to spite me, Donald J. Trump, the greatest President in history. “The situation is under control.”
But the deaths keep mounting. It surpasses annual deaths from auto accidents, 34,000. It surpasses US deaths in the Vietnam War, 58,000. Next, it’s going to surpass total deaths of US soldiers in World War I, 116,500, and it’s not going to stop there.
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Jeffrey Rasley (Anarchist, Republican... Assassin: a political novel)
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A man, perhaps an inch shorter than Andrei, sensing the height comparison, slowly passed him. The stranger still wore an N-95 mask. The pandemic ended three years ago, but Andrei identified why masks were still worn by others. While millions had died from COVID-19, others silently and ashamedly rejoiced in the virus’ demands. The requirement of face masks made it mandatory for everyone to cover more than half of their face. And for those who disliked their face, they, for nearly two years, had the chance to go out in the world and not be ugly for once. Suddenly, while they were not beautiful, they were not hideous. Neutrality can do so much for someone. This period was like a gift for those with horrid teeth, large features, cystic acne, injuries, scarring, and discoloration. Never before were so many people looked straight in the eyes. Masks were some people’s only chance to show who they were. And now, when the pandemic had ended, they were back in the shadows. Large groups of people, however, as Andrei had seen, still wore them, beneath the excuse that the virus could still return. "I would love to kiss one of you on the cheek, he thought.
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Kristian Ventura (A Happy Ghost)
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Dr. Fauci’s strategy for managing the COVID-19 pandemic was to suppress viral spread by mandatory masking, social distancing, quarantining the healthy (also known as lockdowns), while instructing COVID patients to return home and do nothing—receive no treatment whatsoever—until difficulties breathing sent them back to the hospital to submit to intravenous remdesivir and ventilation. This approach to ending an infectious disease contagion had no public health precedent and anemic scientific support. Predictably, it was grossly ineffective; America racked up the world’s highest body counts. Medicines were available against COVID—inexpensive, safe medicines—that would have prevented hundreds of thousands of hospitalizations and saved as many lives if only we’d used them in this country. But Dr. Fauci and his Pharma collaborators deliberately suppressed those treatments in service to their single-minded objective—making America await salvation from their novel, multi-billion dollar vaccines. Americans’ native idealism will make them reluctant to believe that their government’s COVID policies were so grotesquely ill-conceived, so unfounded in science, so tethered to financial interests, that they caused hundreds of thousands of wholly unnecessary deaths.
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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health)
“
No surprise, pharmaceutical interests launched their multinational preemptive crusade to restrict and discredit HCQ starting way back in January 2020, months before the WHO declared a pandemic and even longer before President Trump’s controversial March 19 endorsement. On January 13, when rumors of Wuhan flu COVID-19 began to circulate, the French government took the bizarre, inexplicable, unprecedented, and highly suspicious step of reassigning HCQ from an over-the-counter to a prescription medicine. Without citing any studies, French health officials quietly changed the status of HCQ to “List II poisonous substance” and banned its over-the-counter sales. This absolutely remarkable coincidence repeated itself a few weeks later when Canadian health officials did the exact same thing, quietly removing the drug from pharmacy shelves. A physician from Zambia reported to Dr. Harvey Risch that in some villages and cities, organized groups of buyers emptied drugstores of HCQ and then burned the medication in bonfires outside the towns. South Africa destroyed two tons of life-saving hydroxychloroquine in late 2020, supposedly due to violation of an import regulation. The US government in 2021 ordered the destruction of more than a thousand pounds of HCQ, because it was improperly imported. “The Feds are insisting that all of it be destroyed, and not be used to save a single life anywhere in the world,” said a lawyer seeking to resist the senseless order.
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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health)
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It is possible that we are already living through the twilight of democracy; that our civilization may already be heading for anarchy or tyranny, as the ancient philosophers and America's founders once feared; that a new generation of clercs, the advocates of illiberal or authoritarian ideas, will come to power in the twenty-first century, just as they did in the twentieth; that their visions of the world, born of resentment, anger, or deep, messianic dreams, could triumph. Maybe new information technology will continue to undermine consensus, divide people further, and increase polarization until only violence can determine who rules. Maybe fear of disease will create fear of freedom.
Or maybe the coronavirus will inspire a new sense of global solidarity. Maybe we will renew and modernize our institutions. Maybe international cooperation will expand after the entire world has had the same set of experiences at the same time: lockdown, quarantine, fear of infection, fear of death. Maybe scientists around the world will find new ways to collaborate, above and beyond politics. Maybe the reality of illness and death will teach people to be suspicious of hucksters, liars, and purveyors of disinformation.
Maddeningly, we have to accept that both futures are possible. No political victory is ever permanent, no definition of "the nation" is guaranteed to last, and no elite of any kind, whether so-called "populist" or so-called "liberal" or so called "aristocratic," rules forever.
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Anne Applebaum (Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism)
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Since governments have the ability to both make and borrow money, why couldn’t the central bank lend money at an interest rate of about 0 percent to the central government to distribute as it likes to support the economy? Couldn’t it also lend to others at low rates and allow those debtors to never pay it back? Normally debtors have to pay back the original amount borrowed (principal) plus interest in installments over a period of time. But the central bank has the power to set the interest rate at 0 percent and keep rolling over the debt so that the debtor never has to pay it back. That would be the equivalent of giving the debtors the money, but it wouldn’t look that way because the debt would still be accounted for as an asset that the central bank owns, so the central bank could still say it is performing its normal lending functions. This is the exact thing that happened in the wake of the economic crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Many versions of this have happened many times in history. Who pays? It is bad for those outside the central bank who still hold the debts as assets—cash and bonds—who won’t get returns that would preserve their purchasing power. The biggest problem that we now collectively face is that for many people, companies, nonprofit organizations, and governments, their incomes are low in relation to their expenses, and their debts and other liabilities (such as those for pensions, healthcare, and insurance) are very large relative to the value of their assets.
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Ray Dalio (Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order: Why Nations Succeed and Fail)
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By March, front-line doctors around the world were spontaneously reporting miraculous results following early treatment with HCQ, and this prompted growing anxiety for Pharma. On March 13, a Michigan doctor and trader, Dr. James Todaro, M.D., tweeted his review of HCQ as an effective COVID treatment, including a link to a public Google doc.48,49 Google quietly scrubbed Dr. Todaro’s memo. This was six days before the President endorsed HCQ. Google apparently didn’t want users to think Todaro’s message was missing; rather, the Big Tech platform wanted the public to believe that Todaro’s memo never even existed. Google has a long history of suppressing information that challenges vaccine industry profits. Google’s parent company Alphabet owns several vaccine companies, including Verily, as well as Vaccitech, a company banking on flu, prostate cancer, and COVID vaccines.50,51 Google has lucrative partnerships with all the large vaccine manufacturers, including a $715 million partnership with GlaxoSmithKline.52 Verily also owns a business that tests for COVID infection.53 Google was not the only social media platform to ban content that contradicts the official HCQ narrative. Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, YouTube, MailChimp, and virtually every other Big Tech platform began scrubbing information demonstrating HCQ’s efficacy, replacing it with industry propaganda generated by one of the Dr. Fauci/Gates-controlled public health agencies: HHS, NIH and WHO. When President Trump later suggested that Dr. Fauci was not being truthful about hydroxychloroquine, social media responded by removing his posts.
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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health)
“
For many, an explosion of mental problems occurred during the first months of the pandemic and will continue to progress in the post-pandemic era. In March 2020 (at the onset of the pandemic), a group of researchers published a study in The Lancet that found that confinement measures produced a range of severe mental health outcomes, such as trauma, confusion and anger.[153] Although avoiding the most severe mental health issues, a large portion of the world population is bound to have suffered stress to various degrees. First and foremost, it is among those already prone to mental health issues that the challenges inherent in the response to the coronavirus (lockdowns, isolation, anguish) will be exacerbated. Some will weather the storm, but for certain individuals, a diagnostic of depression or anxiety could escalate into an acute clinical episode. There are also significant numbers of people who for the first time presented symptoms of serious mood disorder like mania, signs of depression and various psychotic experiences. These were all triggered by events directly or indirectly associated with the pandemic and the lockdowns, such as isolation and loneliness, fear of catching the disease, losing a job, bereavement and concerns about family members and friends. In May 2020, the National Health Service England’s clinical director for mental health told a Parliamentary committee that the “demand for mental healthcare would increase ‘significantly’ once the lockdown ended and would see people needing treatment for trauma for years to come”.[154] There is no reason to believe that the situation will be very different elsewhere.
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Klaus Schwab (COVID-19: The Great Reset)
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In the introduction, I wrote that COVID had started a war, and nobody won. Let me amend that. Technology won, specifically, the makers of disruptive new technologies and all those who benefit from them. Before the pandemic, American politicians were shaking their fists at the country’s leading tech companies. Republicans insisted that new media was as hopelessly biased against them as traditional media, and they demanded action. Democrats warned that tech giants like Amazon, Facebook, Apple, Alphabet, and Netflix had amassed too much market (and therefore political) power, that citizens had lost control of how these companies use the data they generate, and that the companies should therefore be broken into smaller, less dangerous pieces. European governments led a so-called techlash against the American tech powerhouses, which they accused of violating their customers’ privacy.
COVID didn’t put an end to any of these criticisms, but it reminded policymakers and citizens alike just how indispensable digital technologies have become. Companies survived the pandemic only by allowing wired workers to log in from home. Consumers avoided possible infection by shopping online. Specially made drones helped deliver lifesaving medicine in rich and poor countries alike. Advances in telemedicine helped scientists and doctors understand and fight the virus. Artificial intelligence helped hospitals predict how many beds and ventilators they would need at any one time. A spike in Google searches using phrases that included specific symptoms helped health officials detect outbreaks in places where doctors and hospitals are few and far between. AI played a crucial role in vaccine development by absorbing all available medical literature to identify links between the genetic properties of the virus and the chemical composition and effects of existing drugs.
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Ian Bremmer (The Power of Crisis: How Three Threats – and Our Response – Will Change the World)
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Staying at home during this COVID-19 lockdown period is an opportunity to go within ourselves, with less distractions to search for our true calling, to search and find as to what contribution can we make to humanity and make the world a better place.
We finally have an opportunity to be with ourselves, or by ourselves because during this lockdown period we are quieter, not out and about everyday shopping, socialising, eating, drinking, going to shows and team sports, being on the treadmill of life etc. We can during this period give ourselves an opportunity to reflect, renew and know ourselves.
You have a choice to make now during this lockdow period as to what kind of a person you want to be from now on, also and what kind of future you want to build. And that, begins in your very homes, with how you treat your family members. This will move in to the post lockdown period as to how you will treat your friends, neighbours and people in your community and general public.
How you conduct yourself (with everyone around you) is influencing all of us as Ba Ga Mohlala and Banareng and also reflect as an image of Ba Ga Mohlala and Banareng to the general public. We all feel you and are impacted by your thought streams and actions.
Decide to contribute your talents to society to better your community and people around you. And when your society and peole around you are better, you will be fulfilled and you would have contributed to building a better world for all.
We need to stay focused and true to the vision that we hold for how we want life for Ba ga Mohlala and Banareng to look over the coming decades, even hundreds and thousands of years to come.
Together, we will create a new better word for Ba Ga Mohlala and Banareng. We must be patient, dedicated to our vision and mission and never, ever give up. Together let us to create the path of an empowered future.
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Pekwa Nicholas Mohlala
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By collecting data from the vast network of doctors across the globe, they added dozens of new compounds to the arsenal—all proven effective against COVID-19. Dr. Kory told me that he was deeply troubled that the extremely successful efforts by scores of front-line doctors to develop repurposed medicines to treat COVID received no support from any government in the entire world—only hostility—much of it orchestrated by Dr. Fauci and the US health agencies. The large universities that rely on hundreds of millions in annual funding from NIH were also antagonistic. “We didn’t have a single academic institution come up with a single protocol,” said Dr. McCullough. “They didn’t even try. Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Duke, you name it. Not a single medical center set up even a tent to try to treat patients and prevent hospitalization and death. There wasn’t an ounce of original research coming out of America available to fight COVID—other than vaccines.” All of these universities are deeply dependent on billions of dollars that they receive from NIH. As we shall see, these institutions live in terror of offending Anthony Fauci, and that fear paralyzed them in the midst of the pandemic. “Dr. Fauci refused to promote any of these interventions,” says Kory. “It’s not just that he made no effort to find effective off-the-shelf cures—he aggressively suppressed them.” Instead of supporting McCullough’s work, NIH and the other federal regulators began actively censoring information on this range of effective remedies. Doctors who attempted merely to open discussion about the potential benefits of early treatments for COVID found themselves heavily and inexplicably censored. Dr. Fauci worked with Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and other social media sites to muzzle discussion of any remedies. FDA sent a letter of warning that N-acetyle-L-cysteine (NAC) cannot be lawfully marketed as a dietary supplement, after decades of free access on health food shelves, and suppressed IV vitamin C, which the Chinese were using with extreme effectiveness.
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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health)
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In April, Dr. Vladimir (Zev) Zelenko, M.D., an upstate New York physician and early HCQ adopter, reproduced Dr. Didier Raoult’s “startling successes” by dramatically reducing expected mortalities among 800 patients Zelenko treated with the HCQ cocktail.29 By late April of 2020, US doctors were widely prescribing HCQ to patients and family members, reporting outstanding results, and taking it themselves prophylactically. In May 2020, Dr. Harvey Risch, M.D., Ph.D. published the most comprehensive study, to date, on HCQ’s efficacy against COVID. Risch is Yale University’s super-eminent Professor of Epidemiology, an illustrious world authority on the analysis of aggregate clinical data. Dr. Risch concluded that evidence is unequivocal for early and safe use of the HCQ cocktail. Dr. Risch published his work—a meta-analysis reviewing five outpatient studies—in affiliation with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in the American Journal of Epidemiology, under the urgent title, “Early Outpatient Treatment of Symptomatic, High-Risk COVID-19 Patients that Should be Ramped-Up Immediately as Key to Pandemic Crisis.”30 He further demonstrated, with specificity, how HCQ’s critics—largely funded by Bill Gates and Dr. Tony Fauci31—had misinterpreted, misstated, and misreported negative results by employing faulty protocols, most of which showed HCQ efficacy administered without zinc and Zithromax which were known to be helpful. But their main trick for ensuring the protocols failed was to wait until late in the disease process before administering HCQ—when it is known to be ineffective. Dr. Risch noted that evidence against HCQ used late in the course of the disease is irrelevant. While acknowledging that Dr. Didier Raoult’s powerful French studies favoring HCQ efficacy were not randomized, Risch argued that the results were, nevertheless, so stunning as to far outweigh that deficit: “The first study of HCQ + AZ [ . . . ] showed a 50-fold benefit of HCQ + AZ vs. standard of care . . . This is such an enormous difference that it cannot be ignored despite lack of randomization.”32 Risch has pointed out that the supposed need for randomized placebo-controlled trials is a shibboleth. In 2014 the Cochrane Collaboration proved in a landmark meta-analysis of 10,000 studies, that observational studies of the kind produced by Didier Raoult are equal
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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health)
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Covid or
Covid Character ( Adjective noun)
Extroverted. Outgoing .Loves to socialize and Meet people physically rather than digital forms. Crowds, markets, parties are favorite hangouts.
Prefers physical greetings as firm handshakes , hugs, kisses.
Seeks company of males over females although needs some company essentially.
Contrarily , dislike being locked inside homes or office alone or with people. Believes in physicality of everything rather than the digital virtual self. Hates online meetings, social networking App world. Habitually Hates all kind of solitary exercises and habits as reading books, all screens including TV, mobile, tabs, PC's
Shuns Covering up of facial features or hands.
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Anup Kochhar
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My life is your crutch.
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Abhijit Naskar (Mad About Humans: World Maker's Almanac)
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COVID 19 is teaching the whole world how to maintain personal hygiene and habit of staying at home with respect to maintaining of social distance between you and anybody around you.
Wash your hand,
Sanitize it,
Stay at home, and
Stay safe.
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mulofino
Slavoj Žižek (Pandemic!: COVID-19 Shakes the World)
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What stands out now is the speed and efficiency with which, in retrospect, the world acted. The virus didn’t get opportunities to establish itself in countries outside China that delayed taking action to contain it, as happened with Covid-19. As the virus arrived, there was no disputing the need for containment or talk of relying on herd immunity. Because of this swift action, SARS never circulated widely enough to be called a pandemic. Maybe the virus’s high death rate scared everyone into line. Maybe its inability to spread before symptoms started, and absence of many mild cases, just made it easier and less disruptive to follow the epidemiologists’ advice. And there was more public trust in experts 17 years ago.
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Debora MacKenzie (Stopping the Next Pandemic: How Covid-19 Can Help Us Save Humanity)
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His cruelty is also an exercise of his power, such as it is. He has always wielded it against people who are weaker than he is or who are constrained by their duty or dependence from fighting back. Employees and political appointees can’t fight back when he attacks them in his Twitter feed because to do so would risk their jobs or their reputations. Freddy couldn’t retaliate when his little brother mocked his passion for flying because of his filial responsibility and his decency, just as governors in blue states, desperate to get adequate help for their citizens during the COVID-19 crisis, are constrained from calling out Donald’s incompetence for fear he would withhold ventilators and other supplies needed in order to save lives. Donald learned a long time ago how to pick his targets.
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Mary L. Trump (Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man)
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Acknowledging the victims of COVID-19 would be to associate himself with their weakness, a trait his father taught him to despise. Donald can no more advocate for the sick and dying than he could put himself between his father and Freddy. Perhaps most crucially, for Donald there is no value in empathy, no tangible upside to caring for other people. David Corn wrote, “Everything is transactional for this poor broken human being. Everything.” It is an epic tragedy of parental failure that my uncle does not understand that he or anybody else has intrinsic worth.
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Mary L. Trump (Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man)
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We live in a perilous age. As I write these words, COVID-19 has become a global crisis. Autocrats, including Trump, hold power in a growing number of countries around the world. Democracy and freedom are at greater peril than at any point in decades. The earth is warming at warp speed, and the catastrophic consequences are more evident every day. Despite these warning signs, we are not dramatically changing our habits of consumption or significantly reducing our dependence on fossil fuels. Income inequality—the gap between the richest and poorest people in the world—is rising at a rate that engenders growing fury among the less privileged.
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Tony Schwartz (Dealing with The Devil, My Mother, Trump and Me)
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As we are beginning to restart our world after being hit by a horrific global health crisis, our actions hold the key to a fast recovery for the entire humankind - therefore, wear a mask whenever you are in public, avoid gatherings and wash your hands frequently - these are by far the most effective way to make sure we keep our friends and family as well as ourselves safe.
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Abhijit Naskar
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In March 2020, are we really in need of the motivational speakers or motivational books? To motivate us for what? For staying home? To those who need it, it's Ok.
But I believe that we need the Bible! And this is why I love the Bible, the infallible word of the Lord; because the word of the Lord is always up to date and the one who trusts in His word will never be put to shame.
It is written: “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” Says the Lord Jesus Christ.
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Bruce Mbanzabugabo (The Inspirer, Book of Quotes)
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In A COVID-19 World, Don’t Zoom Away Your Credibility.
Your attire and grooming are some of the simplest things you can do to maintain your professional bearing.
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Cindy Ann Peterson (My Style, My Way: Top Experts Reveal How to Create Yours Today)
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It can be stated that the post-pandemic future for innovation and entrepreneurship will be different. Whatever entrepreneurial and innovation activities that are happening during the pandemic outbreak, are likely to have a lasting impact on society. The current indication of entrepreneurship initiatives and the benevolence gives us a clear cause of adapted business environment even in the post-Covid-19 world.
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Hibatullah Jawhar (Innovation and Entrepreneurship after COVID-19)
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This is a deeply Christian idea: when I feel alone, abandoned by God, at that point I am like Christ on the cross, in full solidarity with him.
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Slavoj Žižek (Pandemic! COVID-19 Shakes the World)
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PEACE IS THE WEALTH THAT MUST BE STORED
DISEASES BOUGHT WITH WEALTH EARN INTEREST
सुकून एक दौलत है इसे इकट्ठा कीजियेगा
वरना दौलत से खरीदी बीमारियों का ब्याज़ भी आता है
21 Sep 2021 World Peace Day/ International Day of Peace
7 Apr 2021 World Health Day
10 Feb 2021 Wealth Day
14 Aug 2021 National Financial Awareness Day
29 Oct 2021 Climate Finance Day
20 Mar 2021 Corporate Finance Day
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Vineet Raj Kapoor
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Thus, the spirit of objective inquiry in understanding physical realities was very much there in the works of Muslim scientists. The seminal work on Algebra comes from Al-Khwarizmī and Fibonacci (Leonardo of Pisa) has quoted him. Al-Khwarizmī, the pioneer of Algebra, wrote that given an equation, collecting the unknowns on one side of the equation is called 'al-Jabr'. The word Algebra comes from that. He developed sine, cosine and trigonometric tables, which were later translated in the West. He developed algorithms, which are the building blocks of modern computers. In mathematics, several Muslim scientists like Al-Battani, Al-Beruni and Abul-Wafa contributed to trigonometry. Furthermore, Omar Khayyam worked on Binomial Theorem. He found geometric solutions to all 13 forms of cubic equations.
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Salman Ahmed Shaikh (Reflections on the Origins in the Post COVID-19 World)
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In biology and medicine, there were several noteworthy contributions by Arabs. Al-Razi wrote the first book on smallpox, called, ‘Al-Judri wa al-Hasba’. Ibn-e-Sina’s Canon of Medicine was used as a standard medical text in even as late as the 17th century in Europe. Al-Zahravi was one of the pioneer surgeons and he developed various surgical instruments and methods, which were state of the art at that time and some are still used today. He is also reported to have performed the first cesarean operation. Ibn al- Nafis described the pulmonary circulation of the blood quite a few centuries before William Harvey.
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Salman Ahmed Shaikh (Reflections on the Origins in the Post COVID-19 World)
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In chemistry, Muslim scientists carried out perfume distillation, glass making, minting of coins and grouping chemicals based on chemical characteristics, which later on led to the modern periodic tables. In 780, Jabir ibn Hayyan, a Muslim chemist who is considered by many to be the father of chemistry, introduced the experimental scientific method for chemistry, as well as laboratory apparatus such as the alembic, still and retort, and chemical processes such as sublimation, distillation, liquefaction, crystallisation, and filtration. Ibn Hayyan also identified many substances including sulphuric and nitric acids. Al-Jazari developed mechanical devices like watermills and water wheels to ease water management.
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Salman Ahmed Shaikh (Reflections on the Origins in the Post COVID-19 World)
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Even in social sciences, Muslims were modern and advanced compared to their age. The birth of capitalism as per Max Weber in “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism” began in Western Europe and spread to North America. Benedict Koehler in his recent book “Early Islam and the Birth of Capitalism” argues that it is Muslim civilization that provided the organizational and ideological elements that combined and gave rise to some positive features of Capitalism.
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Salman Ahmed Shaikh (Reflections on the Origins in the Post COVID-19 World)
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Among the Muslim contributions to social sciences, Imam Ghazali and Ibn-e-Khuldun discussed the concept of the labour theory of value and division of labour in economics several centuries earlier than Adam Smith and David Ricardo. The famous Laffer curve in economics was first discovered by Ibn-e-Khuldun.
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Salman Ahmed Shaikh (Reflections on the Origins in the Post COVID-19 World)
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Islam and science are not at odds as commonly perceived. According to World Values Survey Sixth Wave results for 2010-2014, 32.73% Muslim respondents completely agreed that science and technology are making our lives healthier, easier, and more comfortable as compared to 24.89% others citing the same opinion. The opinion was asked from respondents on a 10-point rating scale where 1 represented completely disagreed and 10 represented completely agreed. It is interesting to note that 80.13% of Muslim respondents chose response between 6 and 10 on the scale as compared to 78.25% others choosing a similar response.
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Salman Ahmed Shaikh (Reflections on the Origins in the Post COVID-19 World)
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Human rationality is not confined to believing only in physically observable realities. Even though Prof. Lawrence Krauss thinks that the ultimate arbiter of truth is experiment, science would come at a standstill when faced with realities that are not physical. Science would not tell us about the motive, will and morals definitively.
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Salman Ahmed Shaikh (Reflections on the Origins in the Post COVID-19 World)
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It is correct that not all beliefs are true. Some are mere superstitions. A belief can be true or false. If we cannot prove or disprove God from scientific method alone, then we need to evaluate a belief by using other faculties other than physical senses, such as logic and philosophy. If a concept dates back to history, then we ought to evaluate history and archaeology. If the concept is written in a book and millions of people attribute their held views to that book, then one is ought to read and evaluate information in that book. Curiosity demands this continuous probing from a person who is interested in seeking reality, knowledge and truths.
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Salman Ahmed Shaikh (Reflections on the Origins in the Post COVID-19 World)
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From the perspective of science, take the unprovable proposition that there exist unobservable fairies beneath the garden. When the human rationality would understand that this is an unobservable proposition, it would employ other faculties to probe it further rather than relying on experiments or physical senses. For instance, ask who believes that fairies exist beneath the gardens. If none, then we do not need to find an answer to an irrelevant hypothetical belief as to whether it is true or false. If someone does believe in unobservable fairies beneath the garden, we need to see what question it answers for him/her and what is the source of this answer? This kind of logical probing will be done to all kinds of beliefs, whether it is existence of unicorn or tea pot orbiting around some distant planet. It should be clear that how probing unobservable claims can be debunked through logic and rationality, whereas science on its own cannot resolve unobservable absurdities definitively.
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Salman Ahmed Shaikh (Reflections on the Origins in the Post COVID-19 World)
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When we see an orderly thing and reflect on its origin or existence, the questions like who created it, how it was created and why it was created come to mind. Atheists want to replace the question of who with chance for primordial matter and skip the question of why. How something comes about is an important part of reality. It comes under the domain of science to seek answers to that. But, that does not mean that the answer to ‘how’ alone tells us the complete story and also answers ‘Who did it’ and ‘Why’.
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Salman Ahmed Shaikh (Reflections on the Origins in the Post COVID-19 World)
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For validation of knowledge about something, seeing something is not necessary. We use inference to know about things we have not seen, but which nevertheless are considered as true by inference. We would infer that someone put book on table if it was lying in cupboard when we last saw it. If we see an infant crying in a stroller in park and is unattended, we would immediately search for the parent or attendant who would have accompanied the infant to this place. Inference can be used to derive valid knowledge about unseen concepts whose physical manifestations can however be observed like gravity, for instance. We know that dark energy and dark matter, detectable only because of their effect on the visible matter around them, make up most of the universe. We knew black holes exist even before we observed them through a visible image in 2019.
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Salman Ahmed Shaikh (Reflections on the Origins in the Post COVID-19 World)
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Science has made us truly amazed at how we exist through fine- tuned balance in numerous variables. The natural question is for what purpose? Can aspiration of getting a due reward for right conduct is possible for everyone? Can absolute justice ever be established? Is everlasting happiness achievable? Can the outlaws responsible for genocide be brought to justice ever? Can the honest and truthful people who suffer unjust lives be duly compensated, if ever?
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Salman Ahmed Shaikh (Reflections on the Origins in the Post COVID-19 World)
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Big bang proved the premise scientifically that the universe began to exist. Everything that begins to exist cannot create itself. It cannot create itself while not in existence. So, it cannot be existing and non-existing at the same time. It has to be created by something that is not ‘it’. The creator has to be independent of the universe itself. So, the constraints of this universe do not apply to that Creator since the Ultimate Creator is not part of the universe. It is the author of both the universe and its laws.
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Salman Ahmed Shaikh (Reflections on the Origins in the Post COVID-19 World)
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The Ultimate Creator has to be uncreated since it is necessary for the universe to be created in the first place. We find cause or creator for something that is created and that begins to exist at some finite point in time like the universe which came into existence 13.7 billion years ago. The Ultimate Creator did not come into existence at some finite point in time. It is ever-existing. This God is not the ‘scientific conjecture of god of the gaps’ which fits in the novel for pages that are not found in the novel. This God is the author of the whole novel and the programmer of nested loops within loops. He is not the pixel of the painting or a brush or a colour or the painting itself. It is the painter. It is not the laws of physics or theorems of mathematics alone. It is the source of these laws and theorems. Isaac Newton aptly said that gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who sets the planets in motion.
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Salman Ahmed Shaikh (Reflections on the Origins in the Post COVID-19 World)
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Even many of the scientists who present themselves as atheists or agnostics are comfortable with a non-intervening concept of deity which brought the laws of physics and primordial inputs in existence in the first place. It is the concept of god espoused by William Paley, Voltaire and Spinoza. Nonetheless, this line of thinking is inconsistent with human curiosity. If we believe that there is a God, then we should seek Him. As a matter of fact, God has communicated to us through His messengers and the last two messengers, Jesus (pbuh) and Muhammad (pbuh) have lived in the daylight of history. Qur’an is the God’s words with us which explains the purpose of creation. Instead of assuming God as a watchmaker, mathematician, master equation and a pilot who starts engine but turns the machine to autopilot, it is important for us to be consistent with our curiosity to seek God. We should not avoid it simply because of not willing to have responsibility.
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Salman Ahmed Shaikh (Reflections on the Origins in the Post COVID-19 World)
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As per monotheistic religions, Allah, the Supreme Being, created all living and non-living things in the universe. This universe had a beginning and this is a fact which is endorsed by physics. This universe cannot be its own creator since it began to exist at some point in time. It cannot create itself into existence while being in existence already at the same time. As part of the cosmos, are we our own creators? James Clarke Maxwell who formulated the classical theory of electromagnetic radiation is quoted to have said: “Science is incompetent to reason upon the creation of matter itself out of nothing. We have reached the utmost limit of our thinking faculties when we have admitted that because matter cannot be eternal and self-existent, it must have been created.
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Salman Ahmed Shaikh (Reflections on the Origins in the Post COVID-19 World)
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Prof. Lawrence Krauss writes: “The declaration of a First Cause still leaves open the question, ‘Who created the creator?’ After all, what is the difference between arguing in favour of an eternally existing creator versus an eternally existing universe without one?” Big Bang has proved that this universe had a beginning 13.7 billion years ago. It is not an eternally existing universe. The lifeless matter cannot be conceived as creating itself independently. We use matter and reshape it into different forms to make aeroplanes, rockets, spaceships, skyscrapers and expansive gardens. We, humans, having the power to form and deform matter through construction and destruction can also not be our own creators and this universe. We have barely come to exist since few hundred thousand years ago on this planet. We know and recognize by experience and observation our physical limits and fallibility. Our behavioural contradictions and fallacies are so much well documented that the busiest field in economics these days is behavioural economics.
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Salman Ahmed Shaikh (Reflections on the Origins in the Post COVID-19 World)
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The question of who created the Ultimate Creator is not valid since the Ultimate Creator is not a creature and needs not to be created. For someone to be the Ultimate Creator, He has to be someone beyond the constraints of this world and nature. If the premise is that the Ultimate Creator created everything and nothing exists independent of His will, then, the logical conclusion would be that He has to be an independent personality outside of the universe and have no constraints of laws governing this universe.
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Salman Ahmed Shaikh (Reflections on the Origins in the Post COVID-19 World)
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As per the faith of Islam, human beings are created for a test by Allah and we live in His universe under finely tuned life-supporting systems. Our success in this test depends on moral excellence in matters involving free will. The nature of the test examines human actions made with free will. The wish to see absolute justice around us and to achieve everlasting happiness would be possible in afterlife provided we use our free will in choosing moral actions in this life. Success in this test is possible even for those who suffered injustice throughout their lives. Failure is also possible for the richest, powerful and outlaws who nonetheless might be able to evade law enforcement all their lives in this world.
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Salman Ahmed Shaikh (Reflections on the Origins in the Post COVID-19 World)
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Some scientists like Prof. Neil Tyson are comfortable with the notion that we are living in an ape farm created by aliens95, but have a difficult time believing in a Creator who created this universe and us. It is perhaps because the above mentioned faith-based worldview even though is profound and gives everyone meaning in their lives, but it also asks us to shoulder responsibility which we want to avoid and escape from. These analogies reflect thinking and mind set to evade responsibility and they add nothing in terms of answering the questions about the meaning of life.
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Salman Ahmed Shaikh (Reflections on the Origins in the Post COVID-19 World)
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This world is not fair in all respects. A morally upright man is not necessarily the most honourable man in the world. A morally upright trader is not necessarily the richest in the world. Not all murderers have been or will be convicted in this world. Even if all murderers could have been convicted, it will not be ‘naturally’ possible to give equitable punishment to the murderers who have killed more than one human being. Furthermore, it will not be possible to reverse the immoral actions and their already occurred consequences. Religion promises absolute justice and deterministic rewards in the life hereafter. This fulfils the aspiration to have perfect justice to lives spent by pious and impious, poor and rich and just and unjust people. The promise that every action and even intention will be given due justice by the Creator makes the 'static conscience' created by Allah a 'self-regulated functioning conscience.
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Salman Ahmed Shaikh (Reflections on the Origins in the Post COVID-19 World)
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Immanuel Kant is quoted to have said: “In law, a man is guilty when he violates the rights of others. In ethics, he is guilty if he only thinks of doing so.” The question is who knows the intentions and who can provide absolute justice. Even if we could know intentions and start enforcing punishment, the suffering is irreversible as the punishment can only take the life of the murderer at best. Criminals responsible for genocide and unjust wars cannot be accorded with absolute justice even if they accept all their crimes. Belief in afterlife accountability promises absolute justice for every small act of evil or kindness in this life. It enlightens human’s life and makes every act of everyone relevant. Belief in afterlife accountability actualizes the cause and effect in moral matters.
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Salman Ahmed Shaikh (Reflections on the Origins in the Post COVID-19 World)
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Some people often ask that why would people who do not belong to any faith, but who do pro-social acts not get anything in the afterlife from Allah. If a person does not believe in Allah and afterlife, then, it is important to understand what will have been the motive of that person for good actions. It may be one of these things: 1) helping others and see their lives improve in this world, 2) getting a good name and die in good records till this world ends and 3) gain self- satisfaction till the life ends. These can be some of the broad objectives for a person who does good acts and who knowingly does not believe in Allah and afterlife. As far as this world can provide justice, all of these objectives will be achieved to a certain extent. If not achieved or if a person anticipates that the world will not be just enough to reward good actions and right intentions; then, one has to question how the 'aspiration of absolute justice' can be fulfilled. Religion promises absolute justice for every wilful action and intention in the afterlife for everyone.
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Salman Ahmed Shaikh (Reflections on the Origins in the Post COVID-19 World)
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Is faith just a human conception coming out of fear? As a matter of fact, the faithful people have lived in the most primitive civilizations as well as in the most recent times. Despite racism, bias, discrimination, genocide and even decimation of their native lands in some cases, the Muslims and Christian population alone would exceed 60% of the global population by 2050 as per Pew Research Centre. In UK alone, about 5,200 people convert to Islam every year. So, it is inappropriate to undermine conscious faithfulness by people who adopt faith even when it could result in bias, discrimination and racism.
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Salman Ahmed Shaikh (Reflections on the Origins in the Post COVID-19 World)
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Conscience is a powerful source to guide towards the straight path. Having knowledge of the right path, what will encourage righteous actions? What makes conscience functioning? Religion is not just a source of information to know right and wrong. Religion gives a worldview that explains the purpose of life. The objective of religious guidance is submission to Allah alone and ethical purification of one’s actions. This belief should be reflected in one’s duties to the Creator and the environment which includes other humans and animals of present and future generations. Belief in divine appraisal can limit mischief of those in authority, can motivate selfless behaviour and is a source of contentment for those with unfair lives and deaths since every small act of goodness and evil would be subject to deterministic rewards in the life hereafter.
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Salman Ahmed Shaikh (Reflections on the Origins in the Post COVID-19 World)
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It is inconceivable to many modern scientists who have also studied Qur’an that how can a person without extensive travel, writing ability and attending modern universities of knowledge, could explain things about history, nature and make socio-political predictions that would appear perfectly correct afterwards. Dr. Keith Moore, former President of the Canadian Association of Anatomists and of the American Association of Clinical Anatomists remarked at a conference in Cairo that details of human development as mentioned in Qur’an must have come to Muhammad from God, or Allah, because most of this knowledge was not discovered until many centuries later.
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Salman Ahmed Shaikh (Reflections on the Origins in the Post COVID-19 World)
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The historical accuracy of Qur’an’s socio-political predictions, perfect transmission through ages of its text, the unique eloquent language it carries and its accurate description of humans and nature should compel one to give it a sincere reading and reflect on its basic message. The basic message for us is that we are not created without any purpose. As per Islam, the purpose is to excel in our duties to Allah with a thankful attitude and be kind to all of His creations including humans, plants and animals we interact and live with.
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Salman Ahmed Shaikh (Reflections on the Origins in the Post COVID-19 World)
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If a religious text is transmitted generations after generations with perfect historical accuracy and consistency and whose descriptive statements about history and future are verified perfectly and whose descriptive statements about what we see across nature and within ourselves is accurate and verified by established discoveries of modern science, then it is certainly a very serious candidate for us to consult in exploring the question of why life and for what purpose? As a matter of fact, Qur’an is such a book which comes true on all the above mentioned characteristics.
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Salman Ahmed Shaikh (Reflections on the Origins in the Post COVID-19 World)
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Nowhere in Islam, is it said that one should replace physical efforts with mere supplication. Islam urges Muslims to explore and use nature for societal well-being and pursue economic sustenance. Tremendous advances in science happened in the heyday of Muslim civilization which stopped partly due to genocide and massacre carried out in Crusades and in the invasion of Baghdad by Mongols. Those who took science further in the West were also mostly religious people for a long period of time.
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Salman Ahmed Shaikh (Reflections on the Origins in the Post COVID-19 World)
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Prof. Pervez Hoodbhoy, a noted Physicist, asks that if Salat-e-Istasqa is performed, then why it does not rain often. He wrote: “The equations of fluid flow, not the number of earnest supplicants or quality of their prayers, determine weather outcomes.” The answer is that Salat-e-Istasqa is a voluntary prayer to ask Allah’s blessings. The collective performance of this prayer is not the replacement of physical efforts or understanding of physical phenomena. It only serves as a moment of reflection and reminder for the people who pray. For instance, when Qur’an says that Allah provides sustenance, it does not imply that we sit idle and do not engage in Kasb-e-Halal (legitimate economic enterprise). Likewise, if physical efforts or physical understanding can help in dealing with physical problems, then all efforts towards these ends shall be undertaken.
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Salman Ahmed Shaikh (Reflections on the Origins in the Post COVID-19 World)
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Prof. Stephen Hawking once said: “I have noticed even people who claim everything is predestined, and that we can do nothing to change it, look around carefully before they cross the road.” Religious faith does not mean that after accepting faith, one can walk on water, fly in the air or defy physical limits in any other sense. Religion concerns with moral content in choices made with free will. Repeatedly, Qur’an asks people to strive for knowledge, discovery, exploration and virtuous livelihood. Nowhere there is a restriction on planning or in using material resources bestowed by the Creator.
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Salman Ahmed Shaikh (Reflections on the Origins in the Post COVID-19 World)
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In fact, we have only speeded up extinction in the last 50 years when the science has been on its peak. Morals do not come from evolutionary biology. Towards that end, it is the depressing story of survival upon survival through destruction upon destruction. No wonder we are now seeing tremendous loss to ecology, environment, bio-diversity and forests after setting aside values and morals.
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Salman Ahmed Shaikh (Reflections on the Origins in the Post COVID-19 World)
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A reflective mind will keep in mind the scientific and historical evidence that death is as much a fact as is life. The belief in life hereafter completes the cause and effect puzzle even in moral sphere of life. In life hereafter, everyone will get deterministic reward for intentional acts in this life based on the ability and freedom in the circumstances which one faced in this life, no matter whether rich or poor, white or black, male or female, strong or weak and elite or commoner. That makes life of everyone meaningful rather than a constant struggle of survival in one form of matter to the other form of matter where survival instinct is the only moral code.
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Salman Ahmed Shaikh (Reflections on the Origins in the Post COVID-19 World)
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Conscience is there in all humans and it gives us clear idea of good and evil. Call to conscience brings sacrifice and selfless choices. But, the life ends for many people without them getting fair reward or punishment. Oneness of God gives us an anchor to see us as part of a universal clan of creatures. All life forms do not create or control breath in themselves or others. We inhabit universe collectively and are equal in sharing it.
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Salman Ahmed Shaikh (Reflections on the Origins in the Post COVID-19 World)
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Consciousness is there in animal life. Beyond animal instincts, humans also have inherent recognition of good and evil in their conscience. Belief in deterministic justice and rewards in afterlife fulfils our aspiration to have true and fair reward for every small act of goodness and evil in afterlife. Every moment of a nurse and that of a cured or dead patient is not meaningless if one believes and prepare for afterlife by achieving excellence in morals. Imam Ghazali wrote that wealth is useful till we die, relatives till we are put in grave and only good deeds will be the currency on judgement day. If we have good deeds to take in next life, then we can have everlasting happiness that is not infected and affected by any Corona Virus.
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Salman Ahmed Shaikh (Reflections on the Origins in the Post COVID-19 World)
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Environmental stewardship requires that we use natural resources ethically so as to equally improve the welfare of society, other living organisms, and future generations126. In the Islamic worldview, the relationship between humans and nature is one of custodianship or guardianship, and not of dominance. The earth’s resources are available for humanity’s use, but these gifts come from God with certain ethical restraints. We may use the resources to meet our needs, but only in a way that does not upset ecological balance and that does not compromise the ability of future generations to meet their needs.
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Salman Ahmed Shaikh (Reflections on the Origins in the Post COVID-19 World)
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Islamic philosophy of life brings a long-term perspective to the pursuit of self-interest by informing humans about the positive and negative consequences of their actions and choices in the life hereafter. In the Godless worldview, due to the absence of afterlife accountability, the rich people with absolute and inviolable property rights can command natural and environmental resources whose potential lifespan is much more than the lives of their owners. But, if the rich people believe in no afterlife accountability, they can extract and exploit these resources quickly and deprive future generations of their use.
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Salman Ahmed Shaikh (Reflections on the Origins in the Post COVID-19 World)
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Climate change is slow, but a cumulative process. Individual human lifespan is only an infinitesimally small fraction of the life of environmental resources and ecosystem services. Hence, the self- centric and this-worldly view of life is incompatible with the concerns of sustainability and socially responsible behaviour. Rather, the dogmatic commitment to self-centric worldview results in the inevitable proliferation of pollution as a right and product to be bought and sold in the market economy. It is ironic, but inevitable to see measures such as ‘statistical value of life’. On the action and policy front in capitalistic democracies, voter ignorance as well as the public-good nature of any results of political activity tends to create a situation in which maximizing an individual’s private surplus through rent seeking can be at the expense of a lower economic surplus for all consumers and producers.
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Salman Ahmed Shaikh (Reflections on the Origins in the Post COVID-19 World)
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Preface to the Paperback Edition The coronavirus, a severe acute respiratory syndrome, has unleashed a pandemic since the original publication of Epidemics and Society. Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is still too new and too poorly understood to allow us to assess its ultimate impact, but its broad contours have become sufficiently clear, and several of its features relate closely to the themes of this book. Like all pandemics, COVID-19 is not an accidental or random event. Epidemics afflict societies through the specific vulnerabilities people have created by their relationships with the environment, other species, and each other. Microbes that ignite pandemics are those whose evolution has adapted them to fill the ecological niches that we have prepared. COVID-19 flared up and spread because it is suited to the society we have made. A world with nearly eight billion people, the majority of whom live in densely crowded cities and all linked by rapid air travel, creates innumerable opportunities for pulmonary viruses. At the same time, demographic increase and frenetic urbanization lead to the invasion and destruction of animal habitat, altering the relationship of humans to the animal world. Particularly relevant is the multiplication of contacts with bats, which are a natural reservoir of innumerable viruses capable of crossing the species barrier and spilling over to humans.
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Frank M. Snowden III (Epidemics and Society: From the Black Death to the Present)
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We have an ability to recognise our consciousness and conscience. Using our senses and rational faculties of inference, we come to know that the lifeless matter and living beings owe their existence to someone else due to their inability to explain their existence by self-creation. Matter has not created itself. Life in its complex and intelligent form in humans can also not be explained by self- creation. Matter is malleable in our hands and we can convert it into different ways to make aero planes, skyscrapers and pyramids. Using geo-engineering, we are striving to even transform climate of entire planet. We, having this ability or potential have also only come into existence in this world few hundred years ago. Thus, even after gaining tremendous advances in artificial intelligence, we cannot claim to explain our existence through self-creation and creation of consciousness from unconsciousness. In a mindless universe, we find ourselves as sentient beings in search of the origin and meaning of life.
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Salman Ahmed Shaikh (Reflections on the Origins in the Post COVID-19 World)
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Work, how we work, and where we work are changing. The modern world is a dangerous cyber world for the innocent now and cyber experts are needed more than ever.
As the Covid-19 changes many things the opportunities for women are opening.
That is why the education of the next generation of Cyber experts must start now, include all those that have historically been limited to be part of this defense of our ways of life.
We need women in cyber at all levels and tasks.
University edification is one area we at Capitol want to assist and are here to help. Study, research, lead the sector with your skills.
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Ian R. McAndrew, PhD
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More recently, SARS and H1N1 surfaced and threatened the world’s population, but thankfully they are different from COVID-19, and we prevented a global pandemic spread of those diseases. I
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Harold Anderson (Contaminant (The Palmdale Files Book 4))
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The global pandemic caused by COVID-19 has significantly affected economies and businesses all over the world. Having no near precedent, the world was thrown into a frenzy in trying to contain infections. Businesses not considered essential, and companies with factories abroad had to close shop until their governments stabilized. Non-employment reached its highest rate as more people lost their jobs. In America alone, almost 43 million claimed their unemployment benefits with the projection that millions more were going to have to do the same in the next few months.
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jencotech
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Regardless of race, gender, or faith, we need to spread love not hate. We should hate things that threaten human life. If people hated the things that caused destruction, depression, and influenced evil, the world would be a better place.
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Deion Campbell (Ventilator : A Covid-19 Survivor Story)
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So we shouldn’t lose too much time in New Age spiritualist meditations on how “the virus crisis will enable us to focus on what our lives are really about.” The real struggle will be over what social form will replace the liberal-capitalist New World Order. This is our true appointment in Samara.
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Slavoj Žižek (Pandemic!: COVID-19 Shakes the World)
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Every civilized society with laws accepts freedom only with responsibility. When that responsibility is determined and guided by the Creator Himself, belief in Tawheed enables a person to be free from being subservient to anyone else except the Creator. Belief in Tawheed ensures equality since every human being is the creature of Allah like everyone and everything else. Religion does not argue for ‘Creation’ doctrine alone. It gives a worldview which explains the meaning and purpose of life, i.e. submission to Allah and ethical purification of actions and which will bring deterministic rewards with absolute justice in the afterlife.
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Salman Ahmed Shaikh (Reflections on the Origins in the Post COVID-19 World)
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meaning to life and what we and others do in it. Else, in a godless paradigm, it is just a game of survival of the fittest. Animals play it as well as humans with no difference between the two in the godless view of life.
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Salman Ahmed Shaikh (Reflections on the Origins in the Post COVID-19 World)
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Some people argue that why Allah despite being most merciful, does not end suffering and evil. Charles Darwin also had problem with understanding why there is evil. We know Allah by His attributes, which are informed to us by the divine scriptures. Even if one does not believe in the divine scriptures, one has to refer to the scriptures to understand the religious viewpoint. Allah is merciful as well as just and He is consistent in His attributes. The hardships people go through in this world are not necessarily a punishment in response to disobedience only. The blessings that we enjoy in this world are also not necessarily in response to virtuous actions alone. The endowment inequality in this world is a way to test thankfulness and patience in us. The test concerns the choices we make with free will and Allah will reward the quality of actions and sincerity of intentions in afterlife.
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Salman Ahmed Shaikh (Reflections on the Origins in the Post COVID-19 World)