“Going through the five phases of grief, we need to come to the acceptance phase that our lives are not going to be the same,” said Thomas Frieden, former director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “I don’t think the world has really absorbed the fact that these are long-term changes.”
Endemic Covid-19 doesn’t necessarily mean continuing coronavirus restrictions, infectious-disease experts said, largely because vaccines are so effective at preventing severe disease and slashing hospitalizations and deaths. Hospitalizations have already fallen 30% in Israel after it vaccinated a third of its population. Deaths there are expected to plummet in weeks ahead.
But some organizations are planning for a long-term future in which prevention methods such as masking, good ventilation and testing continue in some form. Meanwhile, a new and potentially lucrative Covid-19 industry is emerging quickly, as businesses invest in goods and services such as air-quality monitoring, filters, diagnostic kits and new treatments.
Maybe the truth that we were unable to see was that one cannot truly live free within the system. Sure, some systems can be more free than others. Yet, you will still always be bound to only be as free as the system allows. Our system has been tightening its restrictions on how free it will allow us to be, but could really call ourselves free in the first place?
A happy dog on a long leash that allows for some roaming is still just a pet tied to its master.
The United States died in 2020. The future is bleak for those who want to live free.
Maybe the truth that we were unable to see was that one cannot truly live free within the system. Sure, some systems can be more free than others. Yet, you will still always be bound to only be as free as the system allows. Our system has been tightening its restrictions on how free it will allow us to be, but could really call ourselves free in the first place?
A happy dog on a long leash that allows for some roaming is still just a pet tied to its master.