The current edition of the Greek-language Periodiko, which is inserted in our weekend edition deals with the effects of the coronavirus on our diet.

This is certainly an important issue, as all of COVID’s effects are significant. Among other things, a percentage of those who contracted the virus lost their sense of taste and smell to a degree for a period of time, and this affected their eating habits.

But I would like to address the issue of the coronavirus from another dimension, a more general one. To look at it from the point of view of a shocking historical event, which has caused countless deaths worldwide – America has lost about one million people.

Such events – as the 9/11 destruction of the World Trade Center – leave deep wounds that do not heal easily. They have more general and profound effects and usually lead to great changes in people’s behavior, in the economies of countries, even to the point where the economic dynamics between the countries change. They even change, or have the potential to change relations between states.

In fact, in times like the one we are going through, given the unusually long period of peace we have enjoyed, many problems and many repressions and rivalries have accumulated.

On top of that, the current heads of state do not have the memory of the destructiveness of the wars that those of the previous generation experienced.

It is not inevitable that this dramatic coronavirus experience will lead to war. It can lead to a deep financial crisis or something else we cannot imagine – or even a new period of prosperity and international cooperation if the responses turn out to have been the correct ones and we learn some important lessons.

In the end, however, and we are not talking about tomorrow, I find it inevitable that the deep and intense scars that this catastrophe will leave will erupt somewhere and turn into another, and possibly even worse, international crisis.