The lifet-threatening deadly disease of the don of johns will leave lasting trauma damage pain. The country will never recover from it and will have to learn to live with it. A limp or a sagging jaw or a pain in the spine that can be debilitating. Pain pill will never mask it or soothe it or cure it. Nothing will.
What kind of permanent damage do you see to the country because of the unfortunate circumstance people chose to live with live under tolerate?
The limp will be noticeable. The drooping jaw and the sometimes drips of saliva that we cannot control. The sometimes unendurable pain of the soul. No memories of anything good will ever erase all the bad. Yet we will go on somehow. "The better for it"? Doubtful. The worse for it. Probably.