Lessons Learned – Part 66

12 February 2021

Today marks the end of my 14 day period of isolation after the second dose of the Pfizer vaccine. Hooray!

The pandemic still rages but there is some good news in that the number of new cases seem to be consistently falling as well as number of deaths. Perhaps it’s an opportune time to think of what we have learned during this world-wide tragedy. Experience is sometimes a harsh teacher but lessons learned by experience can stick with us for generations. It’s like the hot iron analogy, once burned…. We may not like some of the things we have learned but learned them we (at least most of us) have.

Most of us have learned that we are interconnected with people everywhere on this planet. It’s inane to refer to some disease as “Spanish” flu as we did with the 1918 pandemic or the Chinese virus as some have insisted on calling COVID-19. What is known as the Spanish flu was first reported at an army camp at Fort Funston in Kansas. It was the United States soldiers sent over to Europe in WWI that probably led to the most significant spread of the virus at the time.

In this age of jet travel, anyone can carry the disease anywhere unknowingly. By the time any disease enters any country and is recognized by any authority, it’s probably already too late to do anything but attempt to stop the spread. Each and every person on this planet is interconnected and the sooner we realize it, the better off we’ll be.

Another harsh reality learned is how deficient basic science knowledge is in the United States and the rest of the world. One good thing that has come of this virus is more and more people have learned a little about viruses and science in general. Another is that most have recognized we have not paid attention to science as well as we should.

Speaking of science, it rode to the rescue once again. When you think of the lengthy process in developing a vaccine, testing the vaccine, and getting approval for a vaccine (and rightly so – remember thalidomide?) the rapidity of what scientists and research labs across the globe accomplished in the amount of time they accomplished it is simply astounding. As a former biology professor, I take great pride in these scientific feats. Also, remember, it was a world wide effort to make the progress we saw with vaccines.

I think we can all say we had more than a little time on our hands for self reflection. Hopefully we made wise assessments of our lives during that time. If you are like me, you’ve noticed that cursory conversations with neighbors and friends seem to take a little longer. The person who may deliver stuff to your door may linger a bit with explanations or bits of information. We’ve learned to converse a little more and hopefully a little more civilly.

In spite of political divisions, for the most part, the pandemic has drawn us together. It has been the great leveler. Unfortunately, it has “leveled” some segments of our society more than some others: Blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans, the poor. Perhaps the pandemic has opened our eyes a little more to that.

I’ve learned the world doesn’t orbit around athletes, movie stars, pop idols, and politicians. Football, baseball and basketball games are not essential. I’ve learned the important people on this planet are those that do the everyday big and small tasks required of them: teachers, grocery store personnel, plant employees, delivery people, doctors, nurses, nursing home employees, police and fire personnel.

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While athletic endeavors are not essential, the arts are. I’ve listened to more music, watched more documentaries and cultural events on television, and revisited some of those old classic movies. I’ve missed going to museums and concerts and exhibitions.

We’ve had reinforced that life is fragile. The pandemic has taught us that even though older individuals with medical conditions are most at risk, the virus is nondiscriminatory and can attack anyone at any age. Since life is fragile we’ve probably been a little kinder, a little more gentle, and a little more understanding – except for those damn fools who won’t wear a mask.

I’ve relearned the joy of reading. I was introduced to recreational reading by my mother when she took me to the town library in Morton, Mississippi (above the fire station) and the librarian suggested a Hardy Boys mystery. I grudgingly checked one of the series out and after constant pestering by my mother, I began to read it. I was hooked. I read the entire series that summer as well as other series recommended by my new best friend, the librarian.

I was reading books in junior high that were considered advanced for my age and when I hit high school, I became a student librarian.

College put me off reading. Partly because each course would often assign three or four books – all of them dull as dishwater. Later when I worked on my masters and PhD (didn’t finish the PhD) it was scientific papers. As a biology instructor it was more scientific papers, textbooks, and scientific magazines. I hadn’t read for enjoyment in many years. I think I probably have read at least one book a day during the pandemic.

There are over 475,000 deaths from COVID-19 in the U.S. and counting. We are not out of this yet. We still need more vaccine and we need better distribution, and we need to vaccinate many, many more people. We need to make available and distribute and vaccinate the entire world because just because the U.S. is making progress doesn’t mean the rest of the world is. If we cannot control this across the globe, we’ll constantly be working to combat more and more variants of the virus.

Most importantly, let’s take what we learned from this dreadful experience and make sure it doesn’t happen again.

My song recommendation is Louis Armstrong’s “What A Wonderful World.”