Chernobyl might hold clues.

Last year the amazing HBO series Chernobyl shook global audiences. It brought the horrors of a nuclear disaster to our drawing rooms. The series portrays hows scientist & leaders scrambled to save half of Europe. While they succeeded, it was at great human cost.

“Open Wide, O Earth” the 3rd episode of the 5-episode series – describes the work of Coal Miners. Melted uranium of Chernobyl was going to percolate down the Earth and infect the Black Sea. It would have contaminated the 180,000-square-mile body of water feeding Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania and the Soviet Union. To prevent this, a refrigeration source needed to be installed below molten lava. Soviet coal miners were asked to build a tunnel underneath the lava simmering at 720 °C.

The most gut-wrenching scene is when the sweat-covered miners walk around fully naked but wearing their “protective” headgear. These men knew no amount of clothing could protect them from radiation. And working under molten lava was not possible in coal miner clothes.

Today, the same is playing out on healthcare workers across the globe.

There is a serious shortage of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). It means healthcare workers are as exposed to the Covid-19 virus as the soviet coal miners were to radiation. They are forced to wear bin bags. Only difference being that we understand radioactivity better than corona virus.

There are other alarming parallels.First reactions of leaders have been similar. Covid-19 was compared to common cold. Radiation intensity from Chernobyl was compared to a chest X-ray.First response to reactor meltdown in Chernobyl was chemical. Helicopters dropped 5,000 tons of lead, boric acid, and sand on the reactor, in hopes it would contain the radioactive mess. It did not. First response to Covid-19 is chemical, Hydroxychloroquine. Without medical advice it can lead to eye, heart & skin damage without doing anything to the virus. But HCQ is being touted as miracle cure by some leaders.Only option for common people during Chernobyl was “distancing from the meltdown”. With Covid-19 distancing only option is “Social Distancing”. Why Chernobyl was contained to a 1000 square mile area while Covid-19 became a global disaster?

We need to dig deeper to understand where they diverge. There are two set of decision makers in both the situations and they have behaved differently.

Scientists: Soviet scientists were able to grasp and more importantly able to communicate the dangers of meltdown. They forced leaders to act for containment. While the Chinese scientific community did not do its job in warning the world. Even if they tried, they were silenced and are still being gagged.

Bigger blame is on WHO. Not only did it fail in its duty to give early warning to the world, it was complicit in its spread (Travel Guidelines). But, the real reasons might lie somewhere else.

Leadership: During the Chernobyl meltdown USSR was being led by Mikhail Gorbachev. His Glasnost policies of increased openness and transparency where leading to Perestroika (restructuring). He did everything to control the nuclear fallout, even though it cost him dear. In his own words

“The nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl was perhaps the real cause of the collapse of the Soviet Union five years later.”

In contrast Xi Jinping has projected himself as a Benevolent King, son of heavens. He has advocated imperial one-man rule by invoking of Confucian values of benevolence and filial piety. In 2018 he became “president for life” as term limits removed. Covid-19 would have proved disastrous for him if it were contained within China.

As opposed to Gorbachev, Xi chose to create a global pandemic by putting pressure on WHO. His logic being:

“You pay less attention to your own suffering ,when the whole world is suffering.”

China today claims that it has recovered from the crisis. But we still do not know how large is the pile of bodies that Xi Jinping is standing on.

Currently, the world is fighting a wildfire and China is the biggest manufacturer of water-pipes. China will remain unscathed for a while. For damage control China has embarked in the largest PR exercise in the history of planet. Reports from Germany, Spain & African nations suggest that Chinese diplomats are in overdrive. They are desperate for any positive word on China. They are willing to pay and/or arm-twist for this. How much it succeeds will decide the fate of world in 21st century.

35 years later the nuclear meltdown is still giving cancer to people of Chernobyl. Covid-19 is now part of our ecosystem, we still don’t know what would it cost homo sapiens as a species.