The coronavirus crisis is far from over.
While some people are relieved that they’re able to return to work, I have returned to working from home after a symbolic three-week stint at the company office.
Considering my current tasks, working hours and the risk that remains, it’s just plain stupid to do anything but work from home. Most any facility or service I need is either online or has re-opened. Some never closed, and I’ve not been close to running out of pasta or toilet paper either.
I suppose I’m one of the lucky ones. I’m also far too frugal to voluntarily pump time, money and exhaust fumes into unnecessary commuting rushes or conferences that can just as effectively be held online. This should be “the new normal”.
The unwashed masses, though, are dissatisfied.
Americans have taken to the streets wearing no masks and total disregard for social distancing in order to protest against racial injustice and police brutality by rioting, looting and destroying the property of innocent civilians. Even in The Hague this past Sunday peaceful protests against coronavirus clampdown regulations turned ugly. A scant few hours earlier, hundreds of drunken and unruly youths trashed the Stuttgart city centre following a routine drug check on Saturday night.
The vandalism as well as an unprecedented degree of violence targeted at police has been plastered all over social media. Every copycat kid wants to be the next Twitter whistleblower or TikTok star to launch an entire hashtag.
What may be worth observing is that a disproportionate amount of the arrested have migrant roots, not unlike those hundreds of factory workers recently infected with COVID-19 across German meatpacking plants: they’re cheap labour from Eastern Europe.
The district of Gütersloh, the site of the largest facility, is the current coronavirus hotspot and has gone back into lockdown. As a result, citizens are enraged: they may have to cancel their precious vacation plans!
Oh yeah, slavery and racism are alive and well in 2020 — albeit in different guises.
Society has a long way to go.
