For most people, the Covid-19 pandemic that officially began five years ago marked their first encounter with the number of cases and the N-95 masks and lockdown orders.
I was a young journalist who published Time magazine in Hong Kong in early spring 2003, when we started to get reports on strange new diseases that spread across borders. On March 15, just 22 years ago today, this disease was Give a name By the World Health Organization: Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS).
In the United States, the SARS outbreak has not attracted much attention because the country has only a small number of cases and the worst is overlapping with the Iraqi invasion. But back in Hong Kong, this became the center of the outbreak, and we don’t know when or if it will end.
Looking back at those days, it feels like the run of the whole world with another coronavirus less than twenty years later. Overnight, all Hong Kong wore surgical masks. Airports, hotels and restaurants were abandoned.
At the city office, editors were sweating from uncomfortable N-95 masks, debating some employees working from home to keep the magazine shut down to keep it moving forward. I interviewed scientists, involved the possibility of a vaccine or treatment, and was told that it would certainly take years to develop it if needed.
We ended up feeling lucky with Sars. The infectiousness of its coronavirus is far less than the initial ones, and the outbreak eventually emanates – although not before More than 8,000 people are ill, 774 people die in the world.
Of course, with Covid, we are not that lucky. more than 7 million people have been confirmed to die So far, from Covid, this number is still rising and is almost certainly a bottom price. The political, social and educational side effects of the pandemic are huge and are still in play. In short, it was a global disaster, and it was one of the events that really deserved the name.
So why in the world, I would put Covid in a newsletter that should be good news?
The CV pandemic before 2020 will be worse
After experiencing and covering SARS and COVID, I sometimes like to do thought experiments: How would we respond in 2003 if SARS is as dangerous as Covid?
Recalling 2003. Smartphones don’t exist, and even laptops aren’t common. Video calls are essentially non-existent – if you tell someone you want to “zoom in” with them, then your appearance will be very strange.
All this means that remote work, remote schools and telehealth (it turns out they are all problematic and does keep the economy, education and health care going forward during the pandemic – essentially impossible. With an estimate, without remote work, US GDP will triple Finally in the first year of the pandemic. All of these zoom meetings and cloud files are a literal economic lifeline.
Or take the virus itself. After the first SARS cases before the coronavirus caused the coronavirus, scientists successfully identified it. I still remember going to Queen Mary Hospital at the University of Hong Kong in April 2003 and staring at the virus’s unique sunny corona through an electron microscope. Thanks in Kuvid Great improvement in genetic sequencing speedThe complete genome of the virus was already distributed before the world fully realized what Kuvid was.
Or vaccine. 2003, early work mRNA vaccine technology has just begunand Biontech (the company responsible for pioneering research on mRNA vaccines) will not build Five more years..
Before Covid, it It took five to 15 years – If not long – develop vaccines for the new virus. If we need one during SARS, we will almost certainly stay for a long time. But during Kuvid, the first vaccine candidate was Manufactured by Pfizer-biontech on March 2, 2020 – Vaccination starts less than two months after get off work. Sandra Lindsay, nurse in New York, Received the first shot Less than nine months later, December 14, 2020.
Although scientific advancement is the first necessary step, all the flaws of the U.S. government are filled with urgent urgency and ambition.
We will never receive the vaccine as soon as possible A genius without operating distortion speed. Warp Speed Operation Warp Speed holds the basis by supporting simultaneous development of multiple vaccine candidates, performing multiple stages of vaccine development and trials in parallel, and by ensuring the market for the multi-billion-dollar vaccine market.
Aside from science, the bipartisan relief bill prevented poverty during the first horrible months of the pandemic. In fact, In fact, poor Falled In 2021 Child poverty has dropped by more than half compared to the years before the pandemic.
Don’t forget our achievements
I realized that few people were willing to look back at the pandemic, of course not for pride. Subsequent virus variants and new waves More and more escape Even our best vaccines have allowed the pandemic to erode people’s beliefs for years. From the division of public health decisions made during the pandemic, from mask requirements to closed schools, still ongoing Poisoned political atmosphere. Maybe Hundreds of millions of people They are experiencing the effects of long interest, and they think of the loss of the pandemic every day. this Collective trauma The pain we suffer is still with us.
But I fear that all this pain and anger will lead us to ignore the amazing achievements of those years. Not only the scientists and officials who won us these vaccines in record time, but also the doctors and nurses who worked on the frontlines of the pandemic, or the vital workers who kept everything going while the rest of us were isolated. My fear is not only that we will forget this heroism, but when the next pandemic arrives- Inevitably – We will forget that we have shown the ability and willingness to fight it.
On the fifth anniversary of the pandemic, there are many things to do about What went wrong with us during Covid – Yes, in retrospect, We have a lot of mistakes. I realized that “probably worse” wasn’t the most exciting gathering cry after a disastrous after Covid.
But this is still true, and we should not ignore those who make sure that it is not.
The version of this story originally appeared in The Good Newsletter. Register here!
