The world seems haunted by the fear of coronavirus, weeping out all other values but preventing the spread of the virus. The severity of COVID-19 pandemic perceived among us doesn’t come only from that of the virus itself, but also from the fear intensified by citizens. It ended up imposing strict restrictions on our life as the dimension of preventing the virus has been top of the list and dominating our life. From the beginning of this pandemic people are scared of the virus, reports and posts from major media and on the Internet, particularly social media, came up every day. As for the mainstream media such as TV and newspapers, coronavirus cluster was frequently reported, because of it, people felt sensitive to the virus. People had to be imposed limitation on business activity worrying the risk of infection.
Due to the limitation on economic activity, people had to close business when the number of cases surged, and people were increasingly got unemployed. Even the labouring necessary to make ends meet had to be on hold which led to the situation that the unemployed people were put in more difficult situation. People had concern when they can reopen their businesses or anything that gather people which might cause cluster. Even in case they are in the state of emergency which is being requested to be closed — not mandatory —, it is difficult courageously to reopen because of the the pressure or possibility to cause cluster. We’ve often heard this sort of phrase “if not neccessary”, in order to minimize the spread of the virus, “not necessary” actions outside house were frequestly told to be refrained. There’s a case that during lockdown even people in a park in London were called on to be back home[1]. Also, in terms of necessary activity in our life, what about those who work in the cultural fields as their profession? The question rises whether the cultural activities are not necessary? Whether or not they get assistance from government to some extent, their activities are too restricted to maintain their life or to maintain our civilization itself.
Not just for labouring, other activities in our life were limited. Hospital visits were banned, which meant even family members couldn’t visit. In some places, virtual visits were adopted using the Internet. Because of visit banning, family members couldn’t be staying with their beloved ones in the hospitals and it is reported that without their family’s reaching to the place, patient passed away on a basis that we should minimize the risk of infecting the elderly as the virus has more severe harms to the elderly.
Society becomes confused in pandemic. For example, a letter threatening to burn a house was received in the situation that the owner of the house was holding a religious gathering and the grandmother of a writer who often walks in front of the house was infected with coronavirus in which a causality is not clear[2]. In facility where the elderly live in, worker feels powerlessness, when the elderly meet their visitors, it has to be a meeting through plastic wall[3]. In such situation of this pandemic, an elderly woman said that “It wasn’t a life”[4].
Government officials as well as its citizens had the perception of fear as they put down strict measures to societies. Mortality rate is different in country. In cities which have heavy traffic, government may have had to impose lockdown and it worked to decrease the potential number of people infected. In such occasions, it cannot be denied to place lockdown as a temporary option to minimize the infected. Of course in this worldwide pandemic people should take preventive care themselves. And people should refrain from going out if it is not necessary. Bun in the mean time we should not weep out all values that our society has but preventing the pandemic. Even this coronavirus has been told that the mortality isn’t so much higher compared with the historically catastrophic infectious diseases.
As a factor that multiplied the fear among citizens, we should note the loss of the public sphere. Public space should be maintained or ameriorated so that our civilization or human beings can advance our history as the new ones are born to the world, not to repeat the same mistakes without learning history. Public space is the sphere that individuals whose life is limited can leave history for the future generations. Without having such sphere, people would spend time wastefully, and the wrong doings similar or identical to the past would be more likely to occur. Also, in the sphere, “rank”, “prestige”, “power”, “economic dependencies”, “Laws of the market”, and “laws of the state” didn’t have influence[5]. The existence of the sphere has to do with a question that whether history is directional, or cyclical or random[6]. In a sense that our civilization progresses, it would be more working if it is directional. However, not always our world can avoid delay as the limitation of our each life, for example, involves.
An example of representing the loss of the public sphere is that the 45th President of the United States made an decision to leave the Paris agreement, several years later 46th President decided to join again, this is sort of delaying international cooperation . In that sense, the election in which the former was elected needs a careful reconsideration on our history and its advancement. He used social media and got his influence around the world, not just himself but it echoed worldwide. The expectations one had in the earlier period when the Internet emerged ended up quite opposite as it shows the negative outcome. A question is whether the Internet could be a public space. This has to do with infodemic which led the world to be more chaotic, and people being feared by the virus. Infodemic is harmful to society in which people consumes huge amount of information everyday. It feels like the safetyness coming from vaccine that would lessen the tension in community and fear. If people behave like in this pandemic it would collapse society every time contagious virus appears.
[1] Guardian News. ‘It’s not a holiday’: police disperse sunbathers in London during coronavirus lockdown. Description section of the video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9aCKX6awHg. Accessed 21 March 2021.
[2] Le 5 sur 5 ! – C à Vous – 14/05/2020. C à vous. Starts at 6:48 of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6VWR6uKcnI. Accessed 11 February 2021.
[3] Le 5 sur 5 ! – C à Vous – 20/05/2020/. C à vous. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHEN3t4pKG8. Accessed 11 February 2021.
[4] Le 5 sur 5 ! – C à Vous – 20/05/2020/. C à vous. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHEN3t4pKG8. 4:20-. Accessed 11 February 2021.
[5] Jürgen Habermas. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. p.36. ISBN 978-0-7456-1077-1.
[6] Francis Fukuyama. The end of history and the last man. p.71. ISBN 978-0-7432-8455-4.
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