Exactly one year ago today, the first lockdown was implemented in Austria after a general announcement and countless meetings that helped to spread the virus quickly and vigorously. Who remembers, all shops closed, except for those that were supposed to satisfy basic needs, restaurants, schools and the people for whom it was possible worked in the home office. If you went shopping, then only with a mask, disinfectant and the baby elephant. Because of the distance, it was who remembers. It was downright spooky on the streets. Back then, the restrictions were taken very seriously and toilet paper and pasta were hoarded to be on the safe side. Nobody knew why toilet paper, but after someone started using it and some copied it, everyone had to do it at some point. According to the motto, “I don’t know the reason, but if the others do it, then there will be one and until I discover it, there may be nothing left for me.” Because first comes self-sufficiency and then solidarity.

But it was and is important that if everyone does it, then it has to be good. If everyone obeys the rules, the pandemic will go away as if by magic. Now a year has passed and what a surprise, the virus is not only not withdrawing, on the contrary, it is spreading and mutating in a funny way. And even if everyone whines and doesn’t find it all funny and actually want to go back to normality, the truth is that we love our pandemic so much that we do everything we can to ensure that nothing against the causes is done. Even more, we do everything we can to consolidate the causes. As is well known, almost all pandemics are zoonoses, i.e. they come from factory farming or arise from our dealings with wild animals. That is why we eat even more, even cheaper meat that is kept under even worse conditions. For which we have to clear even more rainforest, contaminate the soil and water with even more manure and let many other species become extinct. It’s so easy to keep the new normal just by just doing more of the same thing over and over again. Of course, we do pseudo demos because we see our basic rights restricted and the government is to blame for everything. Yes, she already bears her part of the blame by failing to name the real causes, but that just doesn’t work because you would get on the toes of those she finances. And if we are completely honest with ourselves, no one wants to hear it either, because otherwise we would have to change something in our lifestyle, e.g. stop exploiting animals and humans and eat healthy and plant-based food. We would have to say goodbye to the superstition that obesity, high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease and diabetes II are a part of life after a certain age. And not to forget the great chance of dying from pneumonia in the near future, because the widespread use of antibiotics in factory farming means that they are no longer of any use. All these considerations, the type of procedure and the avoidance of the avoidance of the causes, allow only one credible conclusion: We love the pandemic, the destruction of small and medium-sized economic structures, the prevention of social contacts, especially for our children and adolescents and the tingling feeling of being able to infect someone at any time. We love the new normal. That is why we do everything we can to keep it as long as possible.