COVID-19 is a strange disease, which 500 years ago, amid more violent diseases, wars and famine, might not have been seen to be major threat. However, today, in the age of globalization and technology, this seemingly inconspicuous disease has turned out to be a disaster. While most diseases are invisible, their symptoms can be quickly detected; however, the danger of COVID-19 virus is that it remains latent in the general population and only shows its cruel fangs to the chosen. Situated in the midst of a storm, we tend to think that things were going well before. However, this is an illusion. Our century had been beset with serious problems. Being invisible, COVID-19 has exposed and potentially accelerated them. COVID-19 has exposed human vulnerability. Despite the tendency of modern age to be the buffered self (Taylor, 2007), we are still fatally porous and vulnerable. Does the new epidemic make us face and accept our vulnerability? Or does it accelerate the buffering process making us think we can become "immortal" (Harari, 2017)? COVID-19 has exposed social injustice. Even though the pandemic can infect everyone, most victims have come from the social classes that are living in poor/secluded conditions, such as the poor, the aged, immigrants, and minorities. COVID-19 has exposed the rising inequalities within all societies and can accelerates them if proper measures will not be taken. COVID-19 has exposed the degree to which technology has penetrated the society. Teachers around the world are learning to handle technologies such as Zoom and YouTube in order to teach online. The online teaching, which had been introduced willy-nilly, suddenly became the supreme command. In many Japanese institutions, such as schools and companies, the pandemic has exposed a rigidity and reluctance to introduce new technology. However, while COVID-19 will accelerates the introduction of new technology into the society, which will have many positive effects and make our society more efficient, we must be careful that the temptation of efficiency does not corrode the basic relationships based on face to face communication. These dangers become especially acute as the surveillance of the population increases with the help of the technology, which would have met with strong resistance in the time of peace but is being tolerated in many liberal societies now due to the pandemic restrictions. As Foucault claimed in the Discipline and Punish, plagues justified and facilitated the introduction of disciplinary measures in the past (Foucault, 1975). Rhetoric of "war" has justified and continue to justify emergency measures, which then may become established facts.
