Page 28 - COVID-19: The Great Reset

bring the global financial system to the verge of collapse? And in
the early weeks of 2020, how many decision-makers foresaw the

extent to which a possible pandemic would wreak havoc on some
of the most sophisticated health systems in the world and would
inflict such major damage to the global economy?

A pandemic is a complex adaptive system comprising many
different components or pieces of information (as diverse as

biology or psychology), whose behaviour is influenced by such
variables as the role of companies, economic policies,
government intervention, healthcare politics or national

governance. For this reason, it can and should be viewed as a
“living network” that adapts to changing conditions – not
something set in stone, but a system of interactions that is both
complex and adaptive. It is complex because it represents a “cat’s
cradle” of interdependence and interconnections from which it

stems, and adaptive in the sense that its “behaviour” is driven by
interactions between nodes (the organizations, the people – us!)
that can become confused and “unruly” in times of stress (Will we

adjust to the norms of confinement? Will a majority of us – or not –
abide by the rules? etc.). The management (the containment, in
this particular case) of a complex adaptive system requires
continuous real-time but ever-changing collaboration between a
vast array of disciplines, and between different fields within these

disciplines. Just to provide a broad and oversimplified example,
the containment of the coronavirus pandemic will necessitate a
global surveillance network capable of identifying new outbreaks

as soon as they arise, laboratories in multiple locations around the
world that can rapidly analyse new viral strains and develop
effective treatments, large IT infrastructures so that communities
can prepare and react effectively, appropriate and coordinated
policy mechanisms to efficiently implement the decisions once

they are made, and so on. The important point is this: each
separate activity by itself is necessary to address the pandemic
but is insufficient if not considered in conjunction with the others. It

follows that this complex adaptive system is greater than the sum
of its parts. Its effectiveness depends on how well it works as a
whole, and it is only as strong as its weakest link.

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