Covid-19’s emergence was due either to:
- International-Enviro- – i.e. a Wuhan lab leak
- Natural-Enviro- – i.e. via zoonotic interactions, which may have been facilitated by Climate Change and/or the Socio-Econo- catalysers of population-growth and Subsistence-Income Servitude (SIS).
Thus, in order to prevent future such leaks/zoonotic interactions, The USI-Reform should be implemented because it undermines Authoritarians, population-growth and any economic-need to take risks with animals.
In any case, in 2020, the Australian Federal government could have taken control of international arrivals and their quarantine – for instance, it could have built sufficient fit-for-purpose facilities in Darwin and rerouted to it all international flights, which need not have stopped.
With an appropriate international arrivals quarantine system, the impact on people’s lives and the economy would have been minimal, states wouldn’t have locked-down or locked-out and division wouldn’t have been spurred.
For instance, Taiwan – comparable to Australia in population and a grouping of islands – had open borders yet zero community transmission.
On June 30, 2020, the CDO published it’s only non-USI related article entitled ‘The Universalist 11 – Universal Covid-19 Eradication’, which appeared to kick-start a national debate on ‘elimination versus suppression’.
Since October 2021, following mass vaccination and the emergence of the far more transmissible and less deadly Delta variant, Australia has adopted an increasingly ‘learn to live with it’ approach.
Whether pre-pandemic, during the ‘lockdown’ stage or the ‘learn to live with it’ stage, Coopetitionism, in general, and The USI-Reform, in particular, would have been helpful.
In the current stage, a ‘universal, unconditional and guaranteed’ Subsistence-Income means, if a paid-worker is sick, they can stay home without losing their Subsistence-Income.
With the pandemic magnifying mental-illness and domestic violence, The USI would have disproportionately assisted in ameliorating them.
Also, as explained in The Coopetitionism Philosophy, The USI-Reform delivers an efficient economy, which means the minimum of people mixing in the workforce and on public transport (as they travel to and from work) to achieve a given ‘sustainable stability-prosperity’ outcome.
[Updated July 29, 2022]