The blessing “may you live in interesting times” is reportedly a curse of Chinese origin and I can clearly see why. “Interesting times” certainly hints at something far from the ordinary! I am sure that you will agree that we are all living in extremely ‘interesting times”.
The COVID-19 pandemic has made history as the one to affect all of the world’s population. On the six-month anniversary of the outbreak in June 2020, The World Health Organization reported that there were 10 million cases and 500,000 deaths worldwide. At the end of July, there were in excess of 15 million cases and 700,000 deaths. We are all grappling with varying emotions as we contemplate this reality.
Despite the advice of mental health experts who urge us to avoid focusing on distressing news for long periods; most, if not all of us are continually glued to our smartphones, televisions, or other devices. The climbing numbers headline every day! We question how and why did this happen? Will we survive? What does the future hold? What I have learned about similar outbreaks in the past led me to a few conclusions:
One of my conclusions is that in order to put the pandemic into proper perspective we need to look at the bigger picture.
The 1918 influenza outbreak (or Spanish Flu as it was called) which reportedly killed 50 million people worldwide is possibly the historic event that has the most similarity to the current COVID-19 pandemic. One of the most effective measures put in place to curtail the spread of the disease back then is still highly effective in our current situation – the law. It is obvious that rigid adherence by everyone to public health/government instituted laws is imperative.
Secondly, utilizing tried and proven methods or best practices seems to be a sensible path to take.
Our World in Data has identified South Korea, Vietnam, and Germany as the three countries, which seem to have been more successful in their response to the pandemic than any others have. The rest of the world should not be re-inventing the wheel, it makes more sense to employ similar measures utilized by those countries to stop the spread of the disease.
Lastly, it appears obvious that until a viable vaccine is developed and distributed across the globe, life will not return to any semblance of normalcy.
Until a viable vaccine is available worldwide, it is up to us to follow the mandated protocols to protect ourselves and our loved ones from the threat of COVID-19. We also need to protect the health-care professionals, the scientists who are working diligently on a vaccine, and the other essential workers who show up for work every day despite the ever-present threat to their health and the health of their loved ones.
How will we manage to survive without healthcare and essential workers? Obviously, we owe it to ourselves to keep them safe by observing the protocols and doing our best to safeguard our loved ones and ourselves. As we begin to adapt to these far from ordinary times, we need to be less self-absorbed and a lot more invested in protecting the future of humankind. This; only this is required of us, everything else will be what it will be.
