When Will They Ever Learn?

Where have all the flowers gone, long time passing?
Where have all the flowers gone, long time ago?
Where have all the flowers gone?
Young girls have picked them everyone
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Oh, when will they ever learn?

I’ve listened to Marlene Dietrich sing this song more often than I can remember, but it never fails to send chills down my spine. The first three verses were written by Peter Seeger in 1955, but it was Joe Hickerson who added the final two in 1960, making it a circular song; the flowers are picked for the soldiers resting in the graveyards, then they grow again on those same graveyards, only to be picked again for yet new soldiers, ad infinitum:

Where have all the graveyards gone, long time passing?
Where have all the graveyards gone, long time ago?
Where have all the graveyards gone?
Gone to flowers, everyone
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Oh, when will they ever learn?

A couple of weeks ago an Icelandic survey showed how 93% of the population still believe all the restrictions, lockdowns, border closures and travel bans of the last three years were fully justified; that they were inevitable. No matter if our next-neighbouring country, the Faroe Islands, didn’t do it and did better than us. No matter if our Swedish neighbours didn’t do it, also doing much better than us. Still, they believe it.

When will they ever learn?

I thought of this when I saw Alex Berenson’s account of a new New York Times interview with Bill Gates. Gates has learned all the wrong lessons from Covid, Berenson says, and he has the power to drive public health policy in dangerous directions.

Apparently, Gates is terrified of what the next pandemic might bring. If it will spread through surface droplets, be sexually transmitted, if it will be the result of bioterrorism. To prepare, Gates wants a Global Emergency Corps:

The Emergency Corps plans to run drills to practice for outbreaks. The exercises will make sure that everyone — governments, health care providers, emergency health workers — knows what to do when a potential outbreak emerges.

In other words, it looks as if Gates has fallen into the trap of panicking about a very scary, but highly improbable, almost impossible event, and lost sight of everything else.