As I mentioned in an earlier post, I’ve been watching the lecture series “The Black Death” on Amazon.
With death rates of 40-60% of the population, a series of waves across 18 months and the plague returning every 10 years for centuries, the Black Death changed the world.
This series gave me a different perspective regarding Covid-19.
So far we’ve had it easy here in Raleigh. We’ve had few deaths. Our hospitals are not overwhelmed. We locked down in mid March and delayed the first wave until we began opening up in June.
I still don’t know anyone who has had Covid here in Raleigh (we’ve had cases, just nobody I know).
But that’s going to change. Even though I don’t buy the bad math our governments are using to make decisions, I believe the general trends that are being reported worldwide.
Covid-19 is highly infectious and will hit every country hard.
No country has been able to contain and eradicate the virus. Any “success” is short lived and then new cases start popping up again whenever extreme containment measures are lifted.
So despite our political leaders saying we are “winning the battle” or will eradicate this virus, I have to take a long, realistic view.
- We might develop herd immunity after 60%+ of the population is infected. This immunity might be short lived like flu immunity or longer lived if the virus/disease exhibits certain characteristics.
- We might eventually develop a vaccine that is somewhat effective.
Either of these will take time. Neither is guaranteed.
- A vaccine could take years to develop, manufacture and administer. Even then it might provide only limited protection in terms of time and/or disease mitigation.
- Herd immunity through infection means a lot of people will get infected, some will suffer short term, some will have long term damage and some will die.
In addition, at this point, we don’t know if Covid-19 antibodies – whether developed via an immune response or via a vaccine – offer protection.
It could be that we will never have immunity and will be subject to multiple infections of Covid-19 year after year like we have with the common cold.
That’s a lot of unknowns.
We’ll eventually find out answers to all of these questions. It will take time.
So I’ve decided to shift my mental state. I am no longer pining for things to return to “normal” and counting days until the lockdown is lifted. Instead, I am mentally preparing to live with Covid-19 for a long time. Not days. Not weeks. Not months.
I am preparing for years and possibly decades. (Assuming I don’t die first).
If this is the case, normal will change repeatedly.
- It might mean rolling lockdowns as cases peak and wane.
- It might mean the end of large gatherings altogether.
- It might mean a higher degree of outlasting social/physical distancing.
Will essential workers be paid more? I suspect they will eventually – especially if we run into food shortages and service outages due to a lack of healthy workers.
Will society ever “return to normal”? I’m sure the wealthy and powerful will do their best to retain their wealth and power. They tried to do this after the Black Plague died down, but so many people died that it shifted wealth and power to more people.
I am preparing for the long haul. I “hope” I am wrong but the evidence seems stacked against a fast and painless recovery.