A whole new world

By Victor Kuarsingh

The novel corona virus, or COVID-19 which it is most often referred to by the illness it causes, is on the minds of most people today.  Whether the health of oneself, family, or the economic impacts we see, COVID-19 is certainly a major event in all our lives.   

When reading or watching the news, we see a tremendous amount of negative coverage, and given the impacts on our lives, much of that may be warranted.  However, while respecting the people who are affected and have lost their lives due to COVID-19, we don’t want to forget that we are human, and as we have done so many times before, we will not just survive, but learn to thrive again. 

We see the media and other prominent figures saying that “life will never be the same again”, and although that is true, I think many of them are over exaggerating what this means for us.  Even though this will change many of our lives and practices in the immediate term, we will adapt and learn to live with this contagion, and as we have done in the past, we will learn to prepare ourselves for the next event.

Humanity has survived so much in the way of disease, famine, societal issues and wars, and we have always learned to thrive thereafter.  It may not be instant, but we will overcome and better ourselves. I recall, after 9/11 (which was a horrific and inhumane act with unimaginable impacts), we said the world would never be the same again.  That was true. Air travel was not the same after that, but it certainly did not stop. We learned to improve security screening, we developed ways to pre-check people who traveled often and we continued. So, although “life was not the same”, we thrived thereafter. 

If we go back further, say 100 years, we saw the plight of world war.  We learned a lot of lessons in those conflicts, but after the devastation in World War Two, many realized how evil can creep up and cause so much harm, peril and anguish.  Society is now much more observant (maybe not observant enough) and we are more aware of our past and how to keep watch that we don’t let such events occur again.  

What does that mean? It means that we will survive, thrive, grow, and flourish again.  Yes, many will have needlessly lost their lives while we battle this today, but it will not mean the end of our society which has been anchored on our ability to adapt.  Sure, maybe we will need new screening at airports to detect signs of illness and perhaps we will no longer be tolerant of folks traveling when they are sick (we should have done this a long time ago anyway).   We may also learn to react faster, not allowing political correctness to cause us to not put in measures quickly which could limit the spread of a contagion like COVID-19 no matter where in the world it starts from.  We will likely keep many good habits in place such as our washing hands frequently, covering our mouths when we sneeze/cough, and limit our exposure to others if we are ill.   

What else?  We may also remind our society what anti-vaccine positions may cause us and rethink what it means to contribute to the common good by ensuring we maintain herd immunity to known diseases (which were starting to see a resurgence).   We vaccinate, not to help ourselves, but to help those around us as well (many of whom are much more susceptible to illness). In that vein as well, we also can empathize more with areas in the world who may not benefit from the wealth of the west, and give more freely understanding what devastation mass illness can cause.  

We will adapt to enjoy each other’s company again and travel the world.  We will enjoy concerts, dinners, park outings, village gatherings, religions fellowship, office banter and hugs.  It may take some time, we will likely need to make some adjustments, but we will get there. But for now, please consider what we need to do, to make sure we get there – don’t just think of yourself, this is not about you, you are not the exception, this is about all of us together!