Some COVID-19 thoughts

A new chapter in the pandemic

After pretty much an entire year, it’s safe to say that most people are exhausted of COVID-19. Heck, even for me, the majority of my most-viewed and popular content has been about the coronavirus and I am tired of it.

Sometimes with writing, it’s a trade off between what you really want to write about and writing about what’s popular. With COVID, it feels like one of those ultimate bandwagon topics that everyone has to work in somehow. But, that’s also a sign of just how historically defining this event is.

And…we aren’t even through the worst of it yet.

New cases have recently exploded and other related metrics don’t look very good either. The data triangulates to one conclusion - the pandemic is not going away any time soon.

Sure, there are some positives, like more people getting identified as confirmed cases, lower death rates through a combination of improved treatment and better testing, and better preventative behaviors by populations. It feels like, “ah but we did all this work and have suffered for so long, shouldn’t this be over?” Nope. That fatigue will literally kill us.

The reason is, despite all the positives and the fact that we have had all this time to prepare (versus, say, late February and early March, when people were getting infected like crazy, yet many people hadn’t changed a single part of their daily habits) is that the virus is still here.

We can’t “beat” COVID-19. We can only mitigate its damage. There is no silver bullet. To think that isn’t to underestimate the capability of the human race, rather, it’s to not underestimate nature.

We are really good at underestimating nature. There was never a scenario where we would stamp out this virus. It’s not like SARS or MERS or Ebola, where it fit into some nice sweet spot of properties where it could be contained with a lot of effort and teamwork. The only scenario options for us, despite our arrogance to believe otherwise, was a lot of deaths or a lot more deaths.

I’m not trying to be pessimistic or understate all the work that has been done to make this outbreak turn out better than it could have. I’m just giving the virus credit where credit is due.

Don’t underestimate nature. Be realistic. And, to be realistic is to recognize that, we are still in the early days of the COVID pandemic.