It is a fact that to survive this pandemic the entire planet must reformulate its way of operating.

Despite the previous certainty that the challenges of the present and future — the environment, technological disruption or terrorism — required enormous cooperation between countries, everything remained the same, with populist and irresponsible leadership exacerbating nationalist feelings over the planetary common good.

That is, until a strange virus showed what hurricanes, heat waves, and street outbreaks had not yet revealed. Not only that a shared future is better than a lonely one. It’s that there is no future if it is not shared.

A stable world is a rare thing, says Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations. It tends to emerge only after a great upheaval that creates both the conditions and the desire for something new. But for it to emerge, the first thing is the recognition that the old order will not return and that efforts to resurrect it will be in vain.

If we accept that, then this tragic virus may force us to mitigate the lack of a sense of community that afflicts the planet. Depending on the decisions that are made in the coming days and months, it may be the midwife of better global and local systems, which will come out stronger to meet the challenges.

Globally, this will imply complex changes, revising the privileges of those who are the most benefited in order to alleviate the anguish and fragilities suffered by those who are not. When the storm passes, leaders and institutions must remind us all that the actions of each directly affect the rest.

There is no greater fragility than living in isolation and omnipotence without knowing it.