The Day the World Stood Still

Today, I read the phrase “the day the world stood still” in someone else’s LinkedIn post, referencing of course, the Pandemic and the life altering path it has carved through our lives, and I haven’t been able to do much else this morning other than contemplate that. The day the world stood still. For me it was Saturday, March 7th, 2020. The day before that I stood relatively carefree talking with my youngest child’s teacher and the school principal about plans for spring break. My oldest son and I were heading to Southern California to the LinkedIn Learning studios where I was set to record another construction management course. My wife and youngest son were planning to drive out and meet us later in the week at Universal Studios in Hollywood. Saturday morning all plans were off. The LinkedIn studios closed (and remain so to this day). We managed to squeeze in Universal Studios anyway. It poured down rain all day the next Friday and we stood cold and soaked like it would be the last day we could do that. And it was. We were some of the last guests out as Universal Studios, Disneyland, and even some of the beaches announced they were closed. My oldest went on spring break during 7th grade and never saw a real classroom again until he was in high school.

This pandemic has ripped us apart as a society. Whether you believe the death toll counts or not, no matter what side of the vaccine issue you come down on, no matter where in the world you live, or what political party you associate with; this pandemic has polarized society like never before.

For me, it has been a real shock to see how this has all unfolded. It’s been a shock to see just how unprepared we were as a society to deal with something that some people would describe as inevitable. It’s been a shock to see just how little we have learned from history. And it’s been a shock to see just how polarizing this issue has been as people struggle to grasp what is happening and adopt theories of explanation that are outlandish to some, fascinating to others, and mostly damaging to society as a whole.

Let me give you some examples:

• We have a former leader of the most powerful military in the world who fully believes that Bill Gates created the Corona Virus
• We have a legendary rock music icon who is trying to convince the world that it is under “mass hypnosis”
• One of the most listened to podcasters is trying to convince people not to worry because a pill used to de-worm horses can cure Covid-19, while at the same time stating that he is just trying to have interesting conversations with interesting people
• We amazingly learned nothing from the early 1900’s when smallpox ravaged the population but was then wiped from the face of the earth thanks to a vaccine.

Side bar – interestingly enough on this one, if you go back and read the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision that ultimately defined the rights of the States to set public health policy, you could replace “smallpox” with “covid-19” and it would read like it was published yesterday.

And, of course, my favorite…people truly believe that this whole pandemic is a ruse being used as a means to control people, and that vaccines are really a means to further this control. Why is this my favorite? You can’t get the leaders of the world to agree on anything…nothing. Period. Yet somehow, they all came together to agree to lock the world down, create phony vaccines, simultaneously throughout the world, as a means to control society? Really?

It's easy to point fingers and assign blame, particularly in hindsight, so I try not to do that. However, one thing is clear. No government in the world was prepared for this, and that’s a scary thought. There was no playbook. There was no plan as to who would do what. There was quite simply no public health policy or plan in place to deal with this eventuality. In the absence of a public health plan, our elected leaders attempted to create their own plan as things unfolded. Of course, they were in no way qualified to do that, so the courses of action that were taken failed miserably.

They failed because they refused to look at history as an indicator of what to expect. They failed to control the narrative, and they failed to provide leadership. And in the face of a lack of leadership, people will believe whatever narrative makes them feel more secure, no matter how farfetched it may be.

One of the people I have discussed this with uses the term “searching for off ramps” to describe what we need to do to end this, and I think that is what we all need to do. We all believe different narratives. We have all dug in our heels based on what we have chosen to believe, and we are all fighting to support those beliefs. What we all need to be doing instead, is searching for off ramps. The elected officials of the world are not going to suddenly step up and end this. We all need to search for ways to end this on our own.

Mandates have failed miserably. Any big surprise that people don’t like being told what to do?

Vaccines exist and the effects of vaccines in ending public health crises is well founded. Get informed, make your own choice, and let everyone else do the same. ?

There are plenty of resources, well grounded in science, on how businesses, schools, and venues can open so that we can see our friends and peers face to face. Disneyland taking steps to safely reopen while schools fight to stay closed is insane. Yes, one is motivated by money, but shouldn’t the other one be as equally motivated by the needs of our children?

Businesses – you are not doing anyone any favors with your on-again, off-again, ‘return to office’ dates. You play a big role in the direction society takes in this (looking at you Google and Microsoft). Make a decision and do it. Please don’t ignore the lessons learned over the past two years related to flexible work hours and the ability to work from home, but please, open up and let people make personal decisions on how they can begin to return to “normalcy”, even if that looks different than it did two years ago.

Leaders of the World – this is going to happen again. Please take the lessons learned over the course of the last two horrible years and try to craft public health policies that work. Hint…people will tend to do the right thing if you let them, but they really don’t like being told how to live their lives. Case in point – delaying the deployment of at-home tests because you thought it was more important that public authorities be informed of who tests positive absolutely increased the spread of this virus. Now that people can test at home, they actually do it just because they want to do their part in not spreading this around.

We need to get the world spinning again. We need to all search for those off ramps. It's time the earth stopped standing still.?