What's good about it?
I have never experienced such a global event in my whole life!
How did this event get more publicity and of course action by the governments when other diseases, outbreaks, genocides, wars, famines, environmental catastrophes such as firs did not?
Also a recent Johns Hopkins study claims more than 250,000 people in the U.S. die every year from medical errors. Other reports claim the numbers to be as high as 440,000.
Medical errors are the third-leading cause of death after heart disease and cancer. This was from CNBC in February of 2018.
I am/was happy to see full shelves, folks not behaving badly, no internet disruptions etc. Yes, an item or two were temporarily sold out, snapped out by a few hoarders or folks trying to make a quick buck, but it was fine on the whole.
You know who makes the most money at these times though? The social media platforms. We are conditioned to be staring at some form of a screen on a normal day. Now take away the jobs, schools, errands, appointments, vacations,.. And what do got? The gadgets. So we're back to advertising revenue & collecting your data both of which is how they make their revenue.
Of course the gadgets are not our only option. I mean, what did people do 15 years ago?
The natural world existed at least a couple of years before the age of the gadgets. Sarcasm aside, nature is still out there, looking at us with our heads down, starring at our phones, tables, computers,...
Folks there is still time to enjoy this gift of a mild winter. Go snowshoeing or find a quiet place to go for a walk and listen to the songbirds announcing the early arrival of spring.
It is said that something good always comes out of something bad.So what is/was good about it?
Here are just a few;
Fortunately we live in a country wealthy enough to compensate most people for lost wages, at least in part.
Financial institutions not charging interest on loans or forgiving them altogether. Of course not doing that may prove to be more costly as a good few folks would undoubtably file for bankruptcy.
Some people coming together or at least behaving as they did before this event.
Store shelves are not really empty. Certainly no price hikes.
Families spending more time together.
People able to spend time in nature, if they so chose and destress from their jobs.
We were made aware of how quickly life can change. How connected we are to others halfway around the globe. How unsustainable our lifestyles are and how quickly we can turn things around, if we wanted to.
And finally for my favorite side-effect, a significant reduction in pollution around the globe, yay!
What happened/happening was not the end of the world. It was however a wake-up call. A call to action about how destructive we are with nature. How we urgently need to build-up our immune systems. How someone’s action or well being half way across the world can affect us here and quickly. How we are all so connected.
They said that it’s impossible to turn things around and that we have gone too far to fix things. Nonsense, we just did it!
The pollution has dropped significantly around the globe in less than month!
So I wonder, will we go back to statuesque or will we take this event as a lesson and a fork in the road. Carry on as if nothing happened and forget about it all OR stay with it. Do with less, continue reducing our footprint on the planet, less work, more time for the loved-ones, to play, to discover, less fossil fuels and more renewables, to look up and observe, to recognize, protect and enjoy the natural world, to breathe, to slowdown,
Chickadee-dee
