Life in the time of Corona

Throughout the last two months of monitoring and preparing for the Coronavirus lockdown, the most surprised I have been is about #CoronaSZN not going viral as an Instagram hashtag.  I was expecting a few posts with this hashtag for paid promotions for toilet papers or masks, for the  "drink bleach" challenge to increase your virus resistance from within etc.  Now I know what Gretchen from Mean girls felt like when she unsuccessfully tried to make Fetch happen.  It wasn't going to happen just like my hashtag.  Apart from trying to venture into starting viral Coronavirus hashtags in my 30's,  I have also used my time at home to make some observations.  

First: Polarized response and free advice: People's reaction to this whole virus has been slow and extremely polarized.  There are some individuals that are absolutely calm and feel that anyone panicking is hysterical and on the other end you have the absolutely hysterical, Vitamin C, toilet paper and wipes hoarding folks and just in between these groups of polar opposite people,  you might find a few individuals that are just waiting and watching and stuck mostly in inaction trying to understand if they should also be stocking up on canned beans and toilet wipes.  A true inverse bell curve.  I have already read 30 articles on Linkedin on how to work from home effectively by people who have been doing it for under a week now because the internet is filled with self help gurus and CoronaSNZ has definitely gotten a lot of people talking about increasing efficiencies to stay afloat in the current working conditions as well as providing invalid opinions on when they think we will be over this coronavirus issue.

Second: Slow response and sharing lessons learned: Why has the response to a highly infectious virus been so sluggish by multiple nations.  The first news of the outbreak came out in November 2019.  Knowing that in today's times we have so much travel between nations, I am surprised that borders were not closed off earlier and appropriate escalation was not done to ensure an error free mass production of testing kits despite a massive risk potential knowing what China went through.  Why wasn't the lessons learned from China shared with the rest of the world?  Why didn't nations work together to come up with a unified testing and deployment solution?  

Third: Preparedness and risk management:  It appalls me that there is a false sense of calm within my family and community and some online media outlets to this outbreak.  No, I am not saying you need to throw your arms up in the air and run around in panic.  The fact that we have such reluctance in accepting that we do not know something entirely is what is appalling.  It is evident that the virus is spreading rapidly and countries are struggling to manage it.  Despite this, the measures that have gone into effect to limit the carriers from spreading it to at risk individuals has been minimal.  Schools have continued to stay open, dance academies and shops continue to stay open and there are hand washing experts sharing "how to "videos but no-one has accepted that we as a race are not really ready for emergencies or take immediate measures to manage risk.  The reason this is so important is because, various strains of viruses have continued to infect parts of the human population for a long time yet we did not prepare for a more widespread (infectious) situation.  It makes me wonder what we would do if there was a natural disaster given the state of our environment and its unpredictability.

I am thinking about my family and friends at this time and also about the millions of daily wage employees in the country who have this unwanted intruder knocking on their doors.  They may not have the luxury of working from home or good healthcare benefits to support their families.  At this time, I only have one goal in my mind for myself- take care of my family and friends to the best of my ability and be kind to as many people as I can.  This is certainly a time of uncertainty but I believe with collaboration and kindness,  we can overcome this too.