The Corona crisis has exposed our political and media establishments as dysfunctional and possibly dangerous. If the West was, until recently, associated with scientific, analytical, rational and methodical thinking, then not much is left of that Athenian reasoning. Like houses of cards, most of our Western democracies have succumbed to populist decision making that is, by its nature, deeply unscientific.
When I enrolled in university 35 years ago,
scepticism and critical thinking were regarded as precious Western values. This approach has been discarded:
skeptics are reduced into public enemies. They are scorned by the media and often smeared by their professional colleagues.
No one, I guess, doubts that the world is facing a hazardous health crisis, yet so many questions regarding the nature of this crisis, its origin, the virus at its centre and possible solutions are brushed aside in a manner reminiscent of historical clerical witch hunts rather than treated with the kind of reasoning that should be ingrained in us by Western Liberal traditions.
Comment: Yup, govts do NOT let go of 'emergency powers' once they have them. Not until a major catastrophe in which they're all but wiped out anyway.
Things are not ever 'going back to normal'.