Pandemic Fatigue... what?

Just read an article that many people are tired or fatigued by the COVID-19 pandemic, and based on that not following the guidelines to keep themselves and others safe. Are you kidding me?

The global pandemic we are facing is not a video game or a Netflix show which we can just turn off when we are tired and bored. It is nothing that we can control.

Yes, we can do very little as Sweden does and get close to 5.000 deaths in a population of about 10 million people. Or we can take measures as we do in Germany and get to about 9.000 deaths in a population of about 83 million people.

Based on the data we have from Sweden, Germany would risk to have more than 40.000 deaths (8x the Swedish number). One could argue that the number would be even higher as population density in Germany is about 10x (!!!) higher than in Sweden which results in faster spread of a highly contagious virus.

The problem about the fatigue is that people still do not realize what situation we are in.

They do not realize that we are dealing with a virus that is highly contagious. They do not realize that we have no vaccine and no treatment. They do not realize that we still have a very limited understanding of why some people die and others don't show any symptoms.

They do not realize that the virus itself has not changed. The lower numbers, the flattened curve, all the positive things we are seeing are not due to the virus being less dangerous. They are all due to the measures we have taken. The moment we stop the measures we will get into the same shitty scenarios as we have seen in Italy, in New York, and many other countries around the world.

The sooner we accept our current situation the better we can deal with it.

Don't get me wrong, there are plenty things that I miss. I miss going on vacation. I miss going to restaurants. I miss playing football and poker with my buddies. I miss our large family gatherings and parties. I miss not having to wear that stupid mask. I miss seeing my colleagues in our office. I miss working face-2-face with my clients. I miss a lot!

But I can't just say, I am tired of this, so let's get back to how things were before this stupid pandemic. I am an adult, not a 3 year old. And as an adult I can't be that stupid. I need to accept a situation and figure out how to deal with it. Is this challenging? Well, yes... of course it is. But who said being an adult is supposed to be easy.

So where do we go from here? We look at the things that we can change and try to improve them. Our world and our societies will be better, they will be more resilient even after we figure out a "solution" for the virus. We need solutions for schools, so that our kids can get a proper education and also socialize with other kids. We need solutions for many companies and employees whose business model and jobs became obsolete due to the physical distancing guidelines.

In German we have a saying that goes "Einsicht ist der erste Schritt zur Besserung" it basically means "acceptance is the first step towards improvement". That is what I believe we need to do... accept it, inspect it, adapt it.