Apart from the obvious life threatening health issues, the Coronavirus had a devastating financial impact on the world economy. Acts of terrorism, border disputes and petty squabbles between nations took a back seat to Covid-19. If this disease has taught us one thing it has reminded us all that our economies are very fragile especially when workers are forced into lockdown due to social distancing laws. The virus spread like wildfire through the US, China and Europe and those bustling economies were stopped in their tracks, and that was something we could all ill afford. Perhaps, the dominant world powers will look back on the pandemic and see the untold financial damage that this virus has done, and the years it will take to recover financially. Perhaps, they will think twice before initiating any threat that might affect their economies again, and that includes starting wars. The world is becoming a smaller place so it is far easier for viruses to spread quickly around the globe. People forget that the Spanish flu in 1918 killed over 50 million people, perhaps even as high as 100 million people,and highly infectious diseases like small pox decimated populations for thousands of years until it was eventually eradicated, and a vaccine was made. There have been far worse diseases than Covid-19 which have killed far more people but no disease has ruined the global economy quite like the Coronavirus. This disease won’t be the last but nations, for once, have fought this particular virus on a united front because of its crippling worldwide financial impact, so any future global pandemic will be dealt with far more swiftly and effectively than what was experienced with Covid-19. It can be successfully argued that it was, indeed, the pandemic we had to have. The world will be a better place after this pandemic passes, at least in the short term. Jens Ward, Wardswords