COVID-19 and the anti-lessons of history - The Lancet
▻https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30468-2/abstract
Meanwhile, the protests in Hong Kong from June, 2019, have been a reaction to a perceived erosion of the territory’s quasi-autonomy as a special administrative region. While ostensibly an anti-government protest against the introduction of an extradition bill, the Hong Kong protests could be viewed as an attempt to push back against Xi’s expansion of central power. Concurrently, a US–China trade war instigated by President Donald Trump’s imposition of tariffs on China in 2018 is hitting the Chinese economy. The COVID-19 outbreak is compounding this economic situation, holding out the potential for a global recession with major disruption to global supply chains.
Taken together, these entangled circumstances have created a unique setting in which the COVID-19 outbreak is evolving.
[...]
Analogies of COVID-19 are rarely extended to encompass these intermeshing social and political environments. The lessons approach skates over this history, even as history’s expediency as a tool for instruction is flaunted.