COVID-19 ‘A FEELING OF DEJA-VU’
By Vincent Lyn
Breaking News: Get well messages for President Donald Trump poured in from foreign capitals today after he and his wife both tested positive for COVID-19, but some had very little sympathy for a leader whose response to the pandemic has been widely criticized. Basically messages split between “get well” and “told you so”. Are we at all really surprised by the news of the day?
My first blog about COVID-19 was on Feb 28th and the first AV United Nations published article came out on March 10th. On March 28th I wrote an article “People’s Lives Are Going To Change For A Long Time”. My last paragraph is as follows:
“Life is now changed. Forever. What was is not coming back. We have a new future in front of us and the sooner we can wrap our hearts and minds around it the sooner the better we will be able to adjust. It didn't really need to be this way, not at all. We could've been smart, thoughtful, logical, compassionate a long time ago but that's not the direction my country has taken.”
That was 6 months ago and since then I have published dozens of articles especially about COVID-19. On September 30th CNN writer Nick Patton Walsh wrote an article titled “There is no getting ‘back to normal,’ experts say. The sooner we accept that, the better.”
“As 2020 slides into and probably infects 2021, try to take heart in one discomfiting fact: Things are never going ‘back to normal’. But January is long gone, and it's not coming back. And, psychologists will tell you, that's only bad if you can't come to terms with it.”
Well if this is not a feeling of deja-vu; something I’ve repeated over and over since as early as February, then we all need to rewind the clock and get in ‘Back To The Future’ - DeLorean and reset the timer for 2019. Or better still fast forward 5 years and hope the future will be brighter, because as far as I can tell hardly any of the so-called experts got it right. And the few who were on point nobody bothered listening anyway especially the current administration and certainly not the current POTUS who now has contracted the deadly virus. A virus that has killed over a million people worldwide like I said it would 6 months ago and now leaves 210,000 dead and counting in the U.S. We now know with 100% certainty that Trump downplayed the pandemic right from the very start knowing full well it was a deadly plague as he called it in Bob Woodward’s recent book taken from a number of lengthy interviews he had with the President. But Trump refused to let the American public know instead opting out and saying things were going to be fine and it’ll just miraculously disappear.
Well it’s obvious to anyone with half a brain the leaders and politicians gave up caring who lives and who dies, not that they ever cared from day one. The treasonous lies that have been fed the American people is beyond egregious and unfathomable. It’s murder plain and simple. We all have been left in shock and speechless well at least the sane ones have. I can’t speak for Trump’s cult following of Covidiots who continue to refuse to wear a facemask and will drink bleach if their almighty leader tells them so. We certainly are living in an alter reality and its more and more like George Orwell’s ‘1984’. But this story is far from over.
COVID-19 knows no geographical, social or economic boundaries. It does not discriminate. It’s everyone’s enemy. When you compare the U.S. metrics worldwide there are stark differences. America has 4.25% of the world’s population, 26% of the world’s positive cases, and 22% of the world’s deaths and as I’ve said repeatedly it didn’t need to be this way. Yet, after knowing 9 months ago there was a pandemic in China there still is no national plan and there never has been one. Instead, President Trump has always left this war up to states to decide whatever they want to, largely ignoring top medical experts and scientists. Today we are left with 50 states floundering with no comprehensive battle plan of what to do basically making it up as they go along. What a sham. Many Americans are still looking for answers. They wonder what’s gone wrong, and ask: “How can the richest and most-advanced country in the world be taken down so quickly?” People are fighting to hold on – reeling as many have lost their homes, jobs, or business.
Sadly the pandemic was always about political leverage and never about people’s health and lives. It should have been about reuniting the country like what happened after 9-11 so that every American would help each other and do their part. Proactively it was the only way to get life back on track such as countries like New Zealand, Taiwan, South Korea, and Vietnam have done. Citizens acting responsibly by staying home, limiting contact with people outside their own household, wearing facemasks, washing hands, and isolating when becoming infected. And many did but only half the country did, the rest acted and continue to act foolishly with reckless abandonment.
There’s an old saying in French – “Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose.” Roughly translated, it means, “the more things change, the more they stay the same”. The phrase may soon fade into extinction if it hasn’t already because the COVID-19 pandemic has and will continue to dramatically and irreversibly change so many aspects of our lives. From social interactions to hiring and conducting the business of our lives, this worldwide threat has brought about changes that may significantly alter the rest of our personal and professional lives. Many of the ways we did business 6 months ago may be uncomfortable and unnecessary, replaced by the methods we’ve had to adapt to recently. What seemed untenable just two weeks ago could be our new standard now and in the future.
Many of us will never again feel truly comfortable touching surfaces in public places, shaking hands even with close friends, and standing close to people we don’t know. It may take a long time before people gather in large groups, creating a devastating and possibly interminable shift in so many things we’ve enjoyed, from concerts to sporting events to movies to religious services to Broadway shows and even to work in an office with our teammates. The duration and severity to the livelihoods of the millions who have depended on those business segments and countless other industries and institutions are unforeseeable.
And it didn’t need to be this way….
Vincent Lyn
CEO/Founder at We Can Save Children
Director of Creative Development at African Views Organization
Economic & Social Council at United Nations
Middle East Correspondent at Wall Street News Agency
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