George Orwell wrote in his bestseller Animal Farm that “All Animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others”. The current COVID-19 pandemic is thought to have affected everyone and to spare no one. Whether this is true or not is still too early to say. As humans will we learn from this pandemic or will we return to our normal selves as if nothing has happened? One thing is for sure that the economic repercussions of this will adversely affect the lower and middle income classes. This is also true that the current recession may have benefited a few chosen ones right now and will benefit a few more in the long run but will damage many for a long time to come. The Pareto principle (also known as the 80/20 rule, the law of the vital few, or the principle of factor sparsity) states that, for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. Today when we look at the COVID 19 situation, 5% of the countries are contributing to more than 80% of the reported cases and only 8 countries (4%) are contributing to 85% of the mortality. An interesting fact to note here is that all these countries are the ones which contribute more than 8% of their GDP on healthcare. Leading the list is no other than the USA which spends more than 17% of its GDP on healthcare. The 1992 United Nations Development Program Report showed that distribution of global income is very uneven, with the richest 20% of the world’s population controlling 82.7% of the world’s income the so-called “champagne glass” effect. When we look at the COVID 19 situation, 5% of the countries are contributing to more than 80% of the reported cases and only eight countries (4%) are contributing to 85% of the mortality The philosophical perspective looks at the objectivity and subjectivity of science. The overlap of truth and beliefs is an area called knowledge and this may vary from person to person and from society to society, therefore the philosophical perspective may change as well. Science can only attempt to define data. Empiricism is a cycle of our observation that is inducted leading to deduction which is tested and hence evaluated. All this is done to have a balanced view towards any situation. We have been listening to the phrase ‘seeing is believing’ and most of the great scientists believed in this. August Compte, the French philosopher and the father of positivism, believed that data is objective, and it could be verified through logic and scientific methods. However, we need to remember that data can be manipulated and may have bias and flaws. And thus, interpreting evidence becomes subjective and at times situation based. Sir Karl Popper, a famous philosopher, said that good scientists would do everything in their limited resources to reject bias and see if the research question asked is testable, refutable and falsifiable. Further they should be prepared to change their view and follow the actual path of truth. According to Popper, real scientists (as opposed to, say, psychoanalysts) were distinguished by the fact that they tried to refute rather than confirm their theories. The beauty of science is that it is not linear as put forward by Thomas Kuhn. History has shown that science takes various paradigm shifts: for a long time, it was believed that the earth was the center of the earth and it was only when Galileo proved that Sun is the center that people after the darkness of centuries realized that they were wrong. Kuhn claimed that development in any scientific field happens via a series of phases from normal science to the revolutionary process. The essence of his work was perhaps explaining “paradigm” as an intellectual framework that makes research possible. Ian Hacking puts it in his terrific preface to the new edition of Structure: “Normal science does not aim at novelty but at clearing up the status quo. It tends to discover what it expects to discover.” When anomalies stay unresolved and keep happening, the whole paradigm is questioned by a few. This period of crisis is characterized by, in Kuhn’s words, “a proliferation of compelling articulations, the willingness to try anything, the expression of explicit discontent, the recourse to philosophy and to debate over fundamentals”. The end of the crisis is the ‘Paradigm Shift’ followed by a new view point. The scientific field returns to the normal science but based on the new framework. COVID-19 is a crisis that will cause a paradigm shift and will surely change the whole world. A new world order will be defined, and the social fabric of many societies may grossly change. Our decisions today will dictate our future and our future generation(s) will be having a different perspective towards life. Good or bad, the time will tell. Today everyone is an expert on COVID-19 and has something to add: from the conspiracy theories to the actual treatment of the disease. Many theories are circulating as to why and how this virus came. Allegations are being leveled at both global and national level. Whether this virus is man – made or the progression was due to a lab error will definitely help us to prevent a future catastrophe by being more prepared but the situation at hand is to be dealt differently and more wisely. The earlier we accept the fact that COVID-19 is just another disease and not the only disease the sooner we may be able to get out of this teapot. Today everyone is an expert with a lot of advises and ways to fight the situation. To be continued Dr Kamran Qureshi is a health economist and a health policy Expert and works as an independent healthcare consultant. He holds a medical degree from King Edward Medical University, Post Graduate Diploma in Clinical Research from University of Surrey and an MSc in Health Economics and Policy Making from the London School of Economics. He can be reached at kizhar@gmail.com. Dr Khawar Abbas is a consultant pulmonologist and heads the critical care department at Evercare hospital, Lahore. He has diverse international experience in treating critically ill patients. He can be reached at kaachy1@gmail.com.