The war on hugs: Covid-19 'war' talk loved and loathed in equal measure

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“As a company that’s been around for 125 years, this is how we are showing up for Mzansi, at a time when it’s most needed.”

This shift to a wartime mentality, not just in production but in the social sense too, was promoted by the Chinese ambassador to SA early on during the spread of the virus.

“This is wartime. We are at war with the virus,” he said in an impassioned speech, adding that until people adjusted their expectations to a wartime setting, they would feel frustrated.“No, you would understand that it is necessary because there is a war on, and personal sacrifices and conveniences have to be made.”

Joshua Gans, a professor at the University of Toronto, reached out to Canadians via the media, saying all spheres of life had to be adapted as if in wartime. He said the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918 “cost more lives than both world wars combined”, and that the coronavirus pandemic was “on track to do the same”, and the time to act was “now”.Last week, US president Donald Trump compared himself to “a wartime president”, prompting scorn from many media outlets who pointed out that he first, as theSome are rejecting the notion of the pandemic as a time of war because of the macho and military implications around the word.

 

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