![]() ![]() This is the nature of the invisible enemy it forces us to treat everyone we see as an enemy because they might be unwittingly harbouring the enemy. And although we now call it physical rather than social distancing (a phrase with an interesting history-see Scherlis 2020) and though it is clearly necessary for our and for public health, it still seems antisocial to cross the road to avoid people, whether they are strangers or neighbours. This means that we do not know who we need to avoid and who we do not need to avoid, leading to physical distancing from everyone who is not in our household. But the insidious nature of the virus means that this is not so virus particles are microscopic and invisible. If, as my son Sam has suggested, the virus was basically just little red guys who jump between people making them sick, we could easily see who to cross the road to avoid and who not. Of course, if we could actually see the virus, it would be much easier to deal with it. All of this because an invisible virus jumped from a bat to a pangolin to a human and then on to millions more people. Non-essential operations and treatments have been stopped, intensive care units are overwhelmed, and even there, 50 per cent of COVID-19 patients who get a bed will not make it out alive. And those are just the effects on our everyday lives the most terrible effect is the increase in the number of deaths attributable to the virus. Playparks and schools are closed streets are quiet flights have almost stopped. When we do go out for a walk, we cross the street to avoid walking within two metres of anyone not in our households. Most people in the United Kingdom have been confined to their homes, venturing out only for shopping and occasional exercise. The coronavirus is invisible, but its effects are visible everywhere. Only by rendering the rest of humanity morally visible to ourselves can we overcome capitalism and stop treating other people as invisible enemies. I conclude by suggesting that the coronavirus pandemic represents a hidden opportunity to overcome perhaps the biggest invisible enemy of all: the moral distance that separates us from others. Fourth, I go on to explore the underlying structural weaknesses and disparities in society that have been exposed by the virus but previously remained unconsidered for so long that they too have become camouflaged, even if their effects are all too apparent like the virus, neoliberal capitalism is an invisible enemy that has made prisoners of us all. Third, I explore how the virus has revealed to us what really matters in our lives and has forced us to re-evaluate our priorities. Second, I describe how the invisible epidemic of social media sharing of fake news about the virus worsens the situation further. ![]() First, I analyse the virus itself and how its stealthy nature has transformed our lives. In this paper I explore its invisibility and how it relates to and exposes other invisible enemies we are and have been fighting, in many cases without even realizing. ![]() COVID-19 is our invisible enemy, changing our lives radically without ever revealing itself directly. To say that coronavirus is highly visible is a massive understatement in terms of its omnipresence in our lives and media coverage concerning it, yet also clearly untrue in terms of the virus itself. ![]()
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