Covid-19 Has Been a Wake-up Call for America. Are We Ready for the Next Die Off?
When I originally wrote The Next Human Die Off, it was designed as a book to predict events that were going to happen several years in the future. I wanted to educate people on what the future would hold should we continue on the headlong path we, as a species, are on. There are chapters in my book that deal with changing this path, as well as preparing for the next inevitable mass death event.
I published it in February of 2020, just before the coronavirus hit. Never in my wildest dreams would I have believed that my research would be so immediately justified. Watching the worldwide panic over the coronavirus makes me realize that the human species is closer than ever before to a mass die off.
I expected profiteering, but the hoarding of toilet paper and hand sanitizer is what really blew me away. What is the point of having toilet paper if you don’t have food in the first place? The coronavirus is an airborne virus – while you should certainly wash your hands, using sanitizer seems more of a luxury (with the obvious exception of people in the healthcare industry).
The spread of the virus has been far more rapid than anything I predicted in my book. Patient Zero was diagnosed with the previously unknown disease on November 23, 2019 in Wuhan, China. The first cases of COVID-19 outside of China were identified on January 13 in Thailand and on January 16 in Japan. That’s less than two months to surpass a the borders of one of the largest countries on Earth, and less than three months to go intercontinental.
The mortality rate for Covid-19 is less than 3%, due largely to the use of anti-viral drugs. Most victims are people over the age of 80, or people with compromised immune systems. Regardless, in America, we have essentially shut down the entire nation – schools, businesses, courts and government buildings have all been closed “pending further notice” as I write this.
Do I think that the reaction from the government is wrong? No, I don’t. I am concerned about the ten of millions of Americans that live paycheck to paycheck. How with this shutdown affect them? Will the government step in and allow people to not pay their mortgage or utility bills for two months or longer while we, as a nation, recover from the shuttering of entire industries during this crisis?
Most of all, I’m worried about the next one. The coronavirus is pretty mild in terms of mortality compared to previous pandemics. What happens when we see a pandemic that is resistant to anti-viral or antibiotic drugs? What happens if we see a virus that doesn’t affect humans, but affects livestock – having a direct affect on our food supply?
The fact is – we, as a species, were not prepared for Covid-19. It is part of the human narrative that there will be another mass death in our future. If you want to survive The Next Human Die Off, you need to start preparing now. Covid-19 is your wake up call.