Most people who are relatively intellectually alert are familiar with the political partisanship in the USA, and indeed around much of the world these days, as right-wing nationalism seems to be on the rise everywhere. It is not my purpose for this piece to be a political polemic, a damning riposte to the right or a laudation to the left.

It is only right and fitting that in this global emergency we, in the spirit of common humanity link arms - at a metaphorical distance of six feet, of course - and tackle this emergency with the spirit of co-operation and empathy it requires. So we have to do two things that are diametrically opposed to one each other. Maintain a distance and simultaneously come together. It is a zen koan for the ages.

The question, as all good koans are designed to elucidate, is easy to propose and difficult to answer, because if the answer is to be useful and credible, it has to be both those things: useful and credible. Credibility seems to be in short supply around the world these days - indeed it follows partisan lines. It is balanced by a fairly equal amount of incredulity. We have opinions directed towards us disguised as facts, and we have facts that are dissed by the opposing side as mere opinions. And thus the truth gets batted back and forth like a ping pong ball, and while that particular game goes on, real people are dying of real infections that might have been avoided had the truth been just a wee bit more transparent and obvious a scant few weeks before. And despite the sentiments expressed in my first paragraph, for most thinking folk, the truth has been fairly clear all along. In the USA President Trump has constantly misled people with lies, falsehoods and misrepresentations. Consider: the first recorded case of Covid-91 in the USA occurred on the same day as the first recorded case on South Korea. The latter jumped on it immediately, with a good degree of success, while in the USA the Federal Government dithered for many weeks. The result - in Korea the epidemic has been fairly successfully contained, while in the States it is running rampant.

Here in the USA, it is a fact that our hospitals, medical staff and first responders, in general, are woefully short of the equipment they need, be that equipment ventilators, masks, gowns, beds or personnel. It is also true that two recent and large studies, in 2017 and 2019, into the risks of a pandemic occurring in the country were by and large ignored by the administration. These are quantifiable facts, they exist. 

Currently, the USA is in a situation where states are competing with one another for vital supplies, literally bidding against each other. On occasion, just when one state thinks it has successfully acquired a stash of masks, for instance, it finds the Federal Government has overbid their bid and grabbed those supplies from under that state's nose. It is not at all hard to imagine the same scenario happening around the world, as nations compete against one another. It is like a crowd of starving people fighting for a limited supply of food, trampling upon one another in a ravenous and delirious frenzy. It is sadly, a very human and very understandable response, for these are desperate times and they would seem to call for desperate measures.

Nevertheless, it appears very obvious to thinking people that here in the USA, the Federal Government should take the lead, and lead. It is they who should be in charge of manufacturing and supply. They should be trying to ease this current insane race for limited material, and instead be ramping up production on a nationwide basis. 

Good parents would not stand back and let their children fight over food and race one another to the fridge, kicking and pushing one another out of their way. Good parents would ensure food was divided in an equitable manner, based on immediate need.

The same metaphor can be applied to the world as well. Let this be a time when nations can co-operate with one another, sharing knowledge, expertise, equipment, manufacturing resources, and dare I say it, love, concern and empathy? 

Does not this virus attack us all, irrespective of political leaning, religious belief and skin colour? Yes, it does, but with one exception, and that is the one group most at risk, and they are the ones who are the poor, the homeless, the wretched discards of society. I have watched and listened to many well-meaning people telling us to use these days of home-confinement to talk to our children, phone old friends, practice yoga, write that book or paint that masterpiece. Such advice is fine and good for us as individuals, but let us also think as a nation. Let us look into our souls, and find real solutions to the raw and septic problems of poverty and hunger, war and division. 

How about we use these difficult days to metaphorically gird the globe with advice, help, co-operation, mutual sharing of knowledge and expertise, encouraging all nations and peoples to do likewise. As climate change - the ultimate pandemic - hovers in the wings, such a coming together of nations might not just save us from the coronavirus. 

It just might end up saving us from ourselves.