The influenza outbreak experienced in Winnipeg over a century ago, described in detail in Esyllt Jones’ Influenza 1918: Disease, Death, and Struggle in Winnipeg, echoes many of today’s crises caused by the COVID-19 outbreak, but it also offers a rough guide for what may come next.

Governments around the world are comparing the resolution of the COVID-19 crisis to a war. After all, it was the New Deal and the Second World War that launched an era of globally unprecedented economic growth, prosperity and the swelling of the middle class. Let us use this ‘war on COVID-19’ and the Green New Deal to learn from our past mistakes, and prepare us for a socially and environmentally just future.

The race to finger the animal source of COVID-19 is on. The virus’s animal origin is a critical mystery to solve. But speculation about which wild creature originally harbored the virus obscures a more fundamental source of our growing vulnerability to pandemics: the accelerating pace of habitat loss.

Every level of government and state agency in Canada has had a hand in creating and maintaining the worst socio-economic conditions for Indigenous peoples, especially Indigenous women and girls. Their continued failures to address ongoing genocide puts Indigenous women and girls at higher risk for infection and death from COVID-19.

What will the post-coronavirus world look like? History tells us that in times of crisis, large corporations and the most vulnerable in society seek refuge under the protection of the state. The 2008 financial crisis already made clear that markets alone cannot drive competitiveness and prosperity. On the contrary, state intervention is crucial.

The COVID-19 pandemic is the second major crisis of globalization in a decade. The first was the global financial crisis of 2008-2009, from which the global economy took years to reach a semblance of recovery. We did not learn our lessons from the first, and this is perhaps why the impact of the second has been even more massive.

A group of economists and policy experts on Wednesday called on President Donald Trump to immediately lift the United States’ crippling sanctions against Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, and other countries, warning that the economic warfare—in addition to being cruel in itself—is “feeding the coronavirus epidemic” by hampering nations’ capacity to respond.

While we are all doing our best to adapt to the changing circumstances of the COVID-19 crisis, we must ensure that our isolation does not lead to collective complacency. Now is the time to double-down on our demands for justice and to distance ourselves from capitalism and colonialism.

So often, universities are heralded as paragons of expertise, logic and altruism. How Concordia interpreted the mass eviction of hundreds of its students in the midst of a global pandemic to be a measure of health and safety is unfathomable.

Torontonians and Canadians looking to make a difference in responses to COVID-19 should keep these lessons in mind as they volunteer their time and resources to help those most vulnerable. Our kindness is only as effective as the politics that backs it, and we all deserve to live full, secure, and dignified lives even after this pandemic passes.