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WORST CASE SCENARIO – or BEST?

Saturday, December 12, 2020
 
It is difficult to envision our collective worst fears.
 
Coping with today’s reality is a challenge to believe what we get via media – or to judge for ourselves the actions of our fellow citizens who are ignoring the rules. For many more months, sickness, deaths, and plugged hospitals will plague the planet before the impact of vaccines begins to, slowly, blunt the case count.
 
The speed with which vaccines have been developed for a virus nobody knew about a year ago is beyond description as remarkable or awesome – unprecedented, miraculous.
 
When we emerge from our bubbles, masks, immunization programs and get the all-clear to operate safely and freely again, the world will have changed in many ways beyond what has changed already.
 
Anybody want to buy a hotel, buy an airline, or buy a crowded restaurant? If yes, ring me up – I’ll do the deal and throw in the Brooklyn Bridge …
 
Getting ‘back to normal’ is everyone’s unsettled wish.
 
Everyone near a microphone tells us what we want to hear – that we’ll be back to normal soon, that things will get better fast, and but they leave out their solution for paying for it all.
 
Business titans, political leaders, and talking-heads on TV would like you to think they’re right, they know what they are talking about, and most especially when they don’t have a clue how things will turn out. They are like crows, yelling loudest, but they don’t inspire my trust.
 
It seems like the world is about to get its vaccine shots. Britain is underway, Canada coming soon – and the Americans are in regulatory gridlock, but likely not for more than another day or two.
 
Which makes me wonder if life is better, worse, or just the same …
 
When compared to yesterday?
 
Compared to 100,000 years ago?
 
Both should be quick, easy yes votes, right?
 
Vaccines are coming, vaccines are coming – that should give everyone cause for hope. But the daily cases, hospitalizations, and deaths around the world are startling. Unsettling.
 
I exchanged emails with someone the other day who wrote with considerable confidence that, “This is nearly over,” which would be comforting if true, but it isn’t. Rather, I believe we’re scarcely at the end of the beginning …
 
A year ago, we had no fear, but people in Wuhan were about to trigger China’s government to clamp down, shut down, and beat down the virus. The medical folks advising Taiwan’s government didn’t trust the Chinese information and instituted stringent measures we now regard as brilliantly wise. The world didn’t listen. Every country took part-measures and got results they spun then as prudent and acceptable. Now, we realize those measures and shut-downs weren’t so much fear-mongering as they served to prepare us to cope with the reality now.
 
Getting ‘back to normal’ will, in my view, be a costly not-credible delusion – that train has left the station.
 
Normal will be relabeled NEW, POST, or APREZ – pandemic. Before the economy surges, a lot more people are going to die. That’s no guess; that’s a certainty. It depends on whether vaccines are as effective as promised, if the rollout goes as promised, if the population of the world shows up to get vaccinated.





 
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