What is the relevance of understanding culture, society, and politics during pandemic?
Answers
Answer:Anyone who looks around the world and thinks through the long-term consequences of the crisis will be aware that coronavirus policy is culturally determined, involves key political choices, and that the crisis represents a defining moment for European politics.
When the coronavirus still appeared to be an exclusively Chinese problem, a Chinese colleague sent me photographs of the face masks that he was no longer able to obtain in China. Could I please order them and send them from the Netherlands? After some investigation on the internet I wrote to tell him that in my opinion the face masks in the photographs would not protect him against the virus. No, he messaged back, the advice in China is that even wearing a simple face mask helps. A few months later the official Dutch advice to ordinary citizens is still that it is a myth that wearing a face mask helps against the virus.
As the pandemic spreads around the world it is increasingly clear that culture matters when it comes to the coronavirus. It is a question not only of an individual or collective perspective, but also of a long-term versus a short-term orientation. Now that China seems to be bringing the virus under control to some extent and President Xi Jinping is appearing in public again, is stressing not only the ‘People’s War’ against the virus but also the long-term goal of eradicating poverty in China. That must not be jeopardised by the aftershocks of the crisis.