So here we are again, watching the same tired old drama unfold. The World Health Organisation, that great bureaucratic custodian of global health, has issued its grim bulletin: Ebola is spreading faster than anticipated. British medical teams are on standby, ready to deploy.
But let us not pretend this is a surprise. It is a predictable consequence of an age that worships comfort and ignores the fundamental fragility of human existence. The Victorian era, for all its blunders, at least understood that disease was a constant companion, a spectre that required not just medical intervention but moral and social fortitude.
Today, we have forgotten that lesson. We think hand sanitiser and lockdowns will save us, but the truth is that the seeds of this outbreak were sown long ago in the neglected corners of global health infrastructure. The virus is merely the messenger, reminding us of our own decadence.
As the Roman Empire crumbled under the weight of its own complacency, so too does our global order now falter. We send doctors and supplies, but we refuse to address the root causes: poverty, political instability, and a profound lack of foresight. British medical teams are indeed among the best in the world, but even they cannot cure the disease of hubris that infects our leaders.
The question is not whether we will contain this outbreak, but whether we will learn from it. History suggests we will not. We will panic, throw money at the problem, and then forget until the next crisis.
And the cycle will repeat, as it always does, until we rediscover the virtues of humility and preparedness. Or until we don't.
