4 min read

On day one of my kids Corona-break from school, I noticed a take-out delivery guy wearing asurgical mask stepping out of the elevator in our building. He gave me a little nod before hecasually extended his arm towards the wall-mounted hand sanitizer dispenser that had magicallyappeared overnight. After that quick exchange, a thought ran through my head: We are all in thistogether.

Isnt it funny (well, maybe not funny, but ironic, tragic, and poignant) that a tiny virus that is invisible to the naked eye has affected everyone around the world? From the rich to the poor; the Easterner to the Westerner; the take-out delivery guy to the stay at home mom. COVID-19 doesnt care about who you are, what the color of your skin is, who you love, or who you pray to. It affects all of us because a virus is indiscriminate. It humbly reminds us that on the inside we are all blood, tissue, and bone.

When the virus first started to spread in China early this year there were warnings that it may reach pandemic status. But why did the United States and some other countries take the threat so lightly? As someone with a background in biology, I was taught that many infectious strains, whether bacterial, viral or fungal, follow a similar trajectory. It can exponentially travel from person to person, vector to vector, and may evolve to survive. Every year there are new strains that usually present in the general population with symptoms similar to the common cold. Some are more virulent than others, lingering for weeks, and though they typically arent life-threatening, they do become awkward annoyances. People will still go to work and find themselves saying to colleagues, I have no idea where this nasty bug came from!

As we now know, COVID-19 is highly transmissible and can become fatal if pneumonia develops, especially in those with pre-existing health conditions. Though deaths have occurred in a small percentage of younger patients, it has been touted as a disease more serious in the elderly.

Maybe thats how the novel coronavirus was able to slip with little fanfare and bring countries to a staggering halt and national economies to its knees. In a matter of days, it has altered our way of life in ways that our generation has never seen before. It has bound us together with the closings of businesses, public spaces, gyms, and schools. With social distancing, our lives have moved even more online than they were before. We are seeing celebrities give concerts on Instagram, and yogis stream their classes online. Teachers all around the world are testing out remote learning for the first time, which makes me wonder, will this become the norm? And will my kids grow up in a world without snow days?

The most remarkable thing to me is that the virus has revealed a side of humanity that we drastically needed. Its not an exaggeration to say that as of late the world and society, in general, has had a lot of problems. An example and one of the most pressing concerns is climate change. In a short time, the quarantines and the slowing down of human behavior have reduced the amount of pollution over China and cleared up the waters of Venice. With a reduction in travel, shopping, and traffic, what other changes await Mother Earth?

In a short time, many of us have altered our lives, proving that collectively changing our behavior is possible if our lives and the lives of our families depend on it. And we can do it relatively quickly. Not after years of public service announcements that tell us how bad smoking is or that seat belts save lives. It can happen rapidly, aided when governments can relay strong messaging and say, Theres a threat, and I know it sounds drastic, but its for the good of your parents, grandparents and your fellow man.

Maybe as people sit in their homes, socially distancing themselves from each other they may realize that we do need some government involvement to safeguard our health and welfare. That access to healthcare is a basic human right, and that a preexisting condition shouldnt be a death sentence. That education is important, teachers should be valued, and paid adequately. That the general public needs to understand that medicine is not an exact science and that there is rarely a magic bullet. A disease is not obligated to abide by a textbook scenario, though we naively expect it to. Of course, we also need to focus on education to nurture young minds to help us find cures for other viruses down the line.

Like with any tragedy, there will be unnecessary loss of life. Personal stories have already been shared, and its unfortunately just beginning. For me, it will be a trying time because I have a husband who works in the emergency room, a brother who works in an ICU, and another brother who is a primary care physician. On the flip side, there will be stories of kindness, happiness, and the ever-elusive hope.

But I am confident that one day soon we will emerge from our homes stronger than we were before. How will we be different? Will we go back to having every minute of our life scheduled? Or will we continue to check in on our neighbors and loved ones? Will we teach our children there is no app for empathy, and that more problems can be solved by looking out for one another rather than chasing materialism? Maybe we needed to be reminded that the elderly neighbor, the nurse working the night shift, or the immigrant who just arrived from a war-torn country needs to be taken care of too for all of us to be taken care of. That no one is immune to hard times and that compassion is at the heart of survival.

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Maybe the Coronavirus is the Hard Reset the Human Race Needed - BrownGirlMag