Back to Normal

September has arrived, and with it a return to our normal, pre-pandemic lives. Schools have reopened, people are going back to work, and the general feeling is that the difficulties of 2020 and 2021 are now behind us. Our political leaders have declared that the pandemic is over, testing and vaccination rates are going down, and the attitude about Covid-19 is shifting from fear to acceptance. Sure, we might get sick, but it’s more of an inconvenience, like a cold or flu, than a deadly disease.

While there is much validity to this, the situation is more complex. For some, like the elderly or immunocompromised, getting infected is still dangerous, and while we might go merrily about our lives, others are not so lucky. We also need to acknowledge that testing and vaccination are largely responsible for the lower rates of severe illness and to continue our vigilance. History demonstrates that pandemics return when people get complacent and think that they’re all over.

Finally, while the numbers have shrunk, people are still getting hospitalized and dying from the disease. In his 1929 novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque tells the story of a soldier, Paul B?umer, who is killed on an exceptionally quiet day of the war, and no one notes his suffering or death. We shouldn’t ignore the impact of the pandemic on those still hurt by it. In addition, we need to help those who are impacted by long Covid or have to miss work or school because they or people under their care have tested positive.

So, as we embrace the return to normalcy, we should stay vigilant and redouble our empathy toward those who are still affected by the disease. After a tiger startles a herd of antelope, the tiger merely lies down in the grass, keeping quiet, waiting for those antelope to assume that the danger has passed and start grazing as before. One the antelope relax and let down their guard, the tiger pounces and goes for the kill. We mustn’t be like those antelope, despite our desire to move on from the pandemic and our wishful thinking that it will never return.

Similarly, we should expand our perspective and reach out to those for whom not everything is normal. In Thinking Fast and Slow, Kahneman and Tversky talk about our tendency to make decisions based on WYSIATI – “What You See Is All There Is.” Our brains are wired to believe that we have all the relevant information, and we fail to look for what we don't see. If we are healthy, and all of those around us are fine, it’s easy to forget that some other people might not be. The pandemic left many scars, physical and emotional, and many people missing loved ones who didn’t make it. By enlarging our perspective as we return to normal, we can bring more of us along, support those still struggling, and honor those we lost along the way.