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| A near-empty section of Paseo de la Castellana, one of Madrid's main avenues. Millions of people are holing up at home because of COVID-19. AP-Yonhap |
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| A usually busy main connection between Frankfurt and the Taunus region near Frankfurt, Germany. AP-Yonhap |
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| An electric bus almost has this busy main road in Beijing's Sanlitun shopping district to itself. Reuters-Yonhap |
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| Trucks loaded with fish head to downtown Wuhan in central China's Hubei Province, where the coronavirus originated. It is the first batch of 100 tons of fish transported into the city. Xihua-Yonhap |
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| An empty street in the Porta Nuova district of Milan on the sixth day of an unprecedented lockdown across Italy imposed to slow the outbreak of the coronavirus. Reuters-Yonhap |
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| One of Daegu's main streets. The city is the Korean epicenter of the coronavirus. Yonhap |
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| A main street in Paris is almost empty of traffic. AP-Yonhap |
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| A deserted street in Manila, the Philippines. AP-Yonhap |
By Oh Young-jin
We are but a tiny speck in the universe, or so we would say to suppress our all-too-human, ever-expanding ego.
Now, that observation is made to sound insouciant. We, mankind, are under attack by a virus, an unthinking microbe that only lives to replicate itself in a living being until the host dies out.
This COVID-19 coronavirus is striking fear infinitely greater than its size into our collective heart and is almost stopping it as countries not knowing what to do, and only resorting to the medieval method of quarantine, close themselves off.
Just a few months ago, before this viral invasion began, the planet was seized by talk of artificial intelligence taking over and robots replacing human beings, making them redundant.
The world was in turmoil as the United States and China battled for global hegemony, with people pitted against each other in the extreme case of inequality in wealth distribution.
China was devastated as the city of Wuhan, the epicenter of the current disease, exploded into a big leper colony and was cordoned off from the rest of the country. Although there are signs of stabilization in terms of new cases, few would say the city's corona saga is over because so little is known about the disease.
The U.S. is turning into a basket case, with new infections rising and the government cutting off connections with the outside world in an act of self-quarantine. Europe is down and out with coronavirus fever ignited in Italy and spreading with ever-greater ferocity to the rest of the continent and neighboring islands, tied up as one in the Schengen pact that basically abolished borders.
One may think of Boccaccio's escape through "The Decameron" or the seclusion through "One Thousand and One Nights." Not just yet.
Little have we learned from the past ― the Black Death, the Spanish Flu (misnomer because it didn't originate from Spain or flourish only there) and, more recently, the Ebola epidemic.
Leaders, from Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Trump to French President Emmanuel Macron and Korean President Moon Jae-in, use war metaphors in their efforts to bring this disease under control.
Their war is as if it were an ill-conceived crusade or an ancient Greek expedition to Troy as, in both cases, the whole was less than the sum of its parts, with each country just trying to save itself in a ragtag army. It is getting nowhere for now.
For believers, the whole scene is the last moment of the Tower of Babel before being collapsed by the wrath of God. Then, the people sought to become a god, trying to build the tower to reach heaven.
The curse of the time, perhaps, has been bequeathed to today as people not just speak different languages but also quarrel among themselves, not being able to find any agreement.
For nonbelievers, or atheists, our modus operandi is proved to be a wrong business model, with the coronavirus revealing fatal bugs.
Either way, the viral attack brings us down to the ground and makes us feel humble again. Now, we may not afford to give ourselves Siddhartha's crucial moment, being too consumed by an effort to escape from the sickness. Nirvana may or may not come.
If the battle against this infinitesimal being (I think the coronavirus merits this designation as respect is due for an enemy worthy of it) comes to a close in a couple months, we will go back to our routine.
If not, which appears more likely at the moment, we will be in for a reset that is enormous as the virus is infinitesimal. Oftentimes, a big change is not about whether it is good or bad. It obliges those affected by it to adapt or perish. We may have to prepare for it.
Oh Young-jin (foolsdie@gmail.com, foolsdie5@koreatimes.co.kr) is The Korea Times' director for content.
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