Page 188 - COVID-19: The Great Reset

The tragic death of George Floyd (an African American killed
by a police officer in May 2020) vividly illustrates this point. It was

the first domino or the last straw that marked a momentous tipping
point at which an accumulated and profound sentiment of
unfairness felt by the US African-American community finally
exploded into massive protests. Would pointing out to them that

on “average” their lot is better today than in the past have
appeased their anger? Of course not! What matters to African
Americans is their situation today, not how much their condition
has “improved” compared to 150 years ago when many of their

ancestors lived in slavery (it was abolished in the US in 1865), or
even 50 years ago when marrying a white American was illegal
(interracial marriage only became legal in all states in 1967). Two
points are pertinent to the Great Reset in this: 1) our human

actions and reactions are not rooted in statistical data but are
determined instead by emotions and sentiments – narratives drive
our behaviour; and 2) as our human condition improves, our
standards of living increase and so do our expectations for a

better and fairer life.

In that sense, the widespread social protests that took place in
June 2020 reflect the urgent necessity to embark on the Great
Reset. By connecting an epidemiological risk (COVID-19) with a
societal risk (protests), they made it clear that, in today’s world, it

is the systemic connectivity between risks, issues, challenges and
also opportunities that matters and determines the future. In the
first months of the pandemic, public attention has understandably

been focused on the epidemiological and health effects of COVID-
19. But, moving forward, the most consequential problems lie in
the concatenation of the economic, geopolitical, societal,
environmental and technological risks that will ensue from the
pandemic, and their ongoing impact on companies and

individuals.

There is no denying that the COVID-19 virus has more often
than not been a personal catastrophe for the millions infected by
it, and for their families and communities. However, at a global

level, if viewed in terms of the percentage of the global population
effected, the corona crisis is (so far) one of the least deadly

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