WORST YEAR IN LIVING MEMORY

I’M willing to bet that the most popular title on media articles across the world in this last week of 2020 is ‘The Worst Year in Living Memory’, or words to that effect. I’m prepared to put money on it too - E5, because times are tough, and anyway I only bet on certainties.

Living memory are key words. There have been worse periods; the Great Plague of London wasn’t a pleasant time to be around. But that was in 1666. The Spanish Flu, which should have been called the European Flu, was 100 years ago. Few will remember the Second World War. But despite the millions of lives lost in areas where day-to-day life was pretty terrifying, a large part of the world’s population didn’t feel as immediately threatened as those especially vulnerable to COVID-19, the silent enemy.

Uncertainty

With COVID-19 the only thing certain is the uncertainty; these are uncharted waters. If you are a First World country, or near that status, you would be starting to roll out the vaccine. For Third World countries … what? And, while it’s too early to say whether the existing vaccines will also protect against the new COVID-19 variants that have reared their ugly head, there is no reason to believe they won’t.

We should try to be optimistic about 2021 and beyond. Let’s imagine we will smack this coronavirus on the head by implementing a vaccination programme and can look forward to considerably better times. What has come out of it, so far, apart from the very sad death of so many people?

Well, critically aware of our technical deficiencies in dealing with an unknown and unannounced coronavirus - and that applies to all countries - more attention and resources will now be applied to risk management, especially regarding the potentially wide range of challenges emerging, because no two coronaviruses are the same. Scientists have discovered hundreds of them, mainly in the Far East. They come from bats and are mostly harmless, but they do make the transition to humans. The WHO investigation will, we hope, tell us whether that was what happened with COVID-19.

Change

One real change that is emerging is the degree of human activity that has turned digital; people working online from home; children doing online schooling. It has been widely predicted that a significant portion of the professional workforce of countries will remain online. If that happens, it will be a great shame. The personal interaction gained in the pre-COVID-19 workplace had a dimension to it that communicating via screens cannot replace. All right, cut out the expensive trips across the Atlantic just for three-hour meetings. 

But let me tell you, if the population stays sitting at their screens all day, the obesity problem will soon outstrip COVID-19 for the scare of the millennium; average waist sizes will shoot up. Life expectancy figures won’t look good either. Please don’t let the issue of how many pixels, that your computer screen has, attract more importance than how many times a week that you exercise.

And if you think online will be a shame for the workplace, for schooling it will be disaster; losing the professional tuition, motivation, and personal interaction in an environment of orderliness and discipline – what a waste. I’ve said before – it is authoritatively stated globally that not only are the mortality rates for young people very small but the infection levels are also low, as is the degree of infectiousness in that segment of the population. Sanitising, masking and distancing (SMD) is the ideal new normal approach. Let’s go!

Masks

The wearing of masks is a joke; not a funny one. You go into our city centres and you see pretty well everyone observing the rule in a conscientious manner; full marks to them. Then, not far away and beyond the spotlight, you see a majority of people with masks under their chins. All countries seem to face that half-way house situation; so we should tighten up. We should ask the old and medically challenged to accept lockdown for now, as far as they find possible. 

The economy should not be penalised, and people are desperate to retain their incomes. Alcohol drinkers will continue to drink, legally or illegally; history shows that clearly. So don’t deprive – punish excess. Retain the curfews and ramp up vigilance, and impose severe penalties on people being drunk in public, not wearing masks, gathering in crowds and other breaching of regulations. But allow me, please, to prevent the ink from drying on my personal opinions while each day resembles the climb up the mountain scree -  two steps forward, one step back. Let’s just hope that 2021 brings a vaccine, normal life and a responsive economy.

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