A Different Beginning

1.12.2019. The day everything changed! People all around the world gathered in confined places to celebrate the arrival of a new year. Smiles beamed across faces as people filled themselves with hope. They aspired for a year like never before. They were right, it was indeed a year like never before but no in a way anyone could have ever imagined! This day, New year’s eve, marked the emergence of the unexpected, the disastrous, the agonizing, the overwhelming, the frightening. It was the introduction of an invisible enemy, a virus. A microscopic villain that would change history and our lives killing millions, heightening fears and increasing the risk of poverty. It was the birth of the COVID - 19 pandemic. I wish we could go back. Back to the day before 31.12.2019

31.12.2049. It has been 30 years since the COVID - 19 pandemic began. It has been 30 years since humankind took a u-turn. A u-turn from a future where everyone was much stronger united than divided. After a dreadful year, no one could have predicted what was to come in the following years. People hoped 2021 would bring with it a vaccine, a hope for the future. Vaccine development is an arduous process taking about 10 - 15 years to accomplish it. But with the imminent worries surrounding the COVID - 19 pandemic, unprecedented pressure was placed upon the shoulders of our healthcare systems and economies. Healthcare workers walked around with burdened shoulders as unexampled measures were put in place by the government. Even with the help of hefty funds, healthcare systems stumbled their way to find a solution to this growing problem. The increase in numbers kept rising, from one to one hundred, to one thousand, to one hundred thousand, to a million to ten million. The virus swept through the world like a tsunami wave, showing no discrimination, infecting people regardless of religion, class or wealth, ignoring national borders, demanding attention!

After a year of distress, the start of 2021 brought news of vaccines. The world leapt with joy as people appreciated healthcare workers and scientists for their implausible effort towards the community. There were two perspectives to the vaccine - some were euphoric and couldn’t wait to get back to a world before 2020, while others were reluctant and pessimistic towards a vaccine created in just a year. They felt hesitant towards being injected. People rushed to be vaccinated, even though it was astonishingly expensive! Attempting to return to a world before 2020, the streets began to fill up with cars, bikes and people. Under the illusion that vaccines were our saviour, we returned to what we called the “normal” way of living.

Those who were hesitant towards vaccines thought right! Many governments were exposed as a rise in cases occurred. The truth was nothing but more throbbing as cases couldn’t be controlled like we were by the government. Governments who based their campaigns on the vaccine, were despised. Most of us forgot the governing principle to life on Earth - money! The governments we worshipped turned out to be magnets to money. Governments sacrificed millions of innocent people for their pockets and additionally deceived the rest to receive the vaccine. It wasn’t a vaccine, it was a strategy. A strategy very well played, after all humans are feeble to emotional discomfort. They stole innocence and naiveness from the world, young children, including me, were horrified as our future was being diminished in front of our sinless faces. No one knew what to do about COVID, but they knew they could do something against our 2nd enemy. Within days, lockdown regulations were disregarded and outcries sparked all around the world! These days signalled the end of humankind.The world was a mess and there was no one to clean it. These memories are everlasting and most importantly heart throbbing.

Eventually the world came together like pieces of a puzzle to spell out hope. Very little but there was some hope. Even though it has been 30 years since this catastrophe, the world hasn’t forgotten it or its impact. Most of us have tried to erase the sorrows of the pandemic, but it has been stamped in our heads eternally. Offices around the world endeavoured to fill their cabins but no one moved from their pajamas at home. Shortly, offices closed without opening and remote working was the ideal road. Even though homes became the new offices, work wasn’t halted. The world is still the vast industrial land it was 30 years ago.

While the world adapted to change, the impact of technology remained at its same status. Without technology the world was meaningless in 2020, and it remains the same way today. Not all the turbulence from 2020, however, is unwelcome. Who didn’t think robots were going to rule the years to come. Due to COVID - 19 robots are all over the map, from houses to shops to offices and even schools. Robots became so pervasive during the pandemic for deliveries, COVID-19 tests, automated services and even home use. As the world was enforced to be locked up in houses, social media overpowered social interactions. Years after the pandemic, the world became utterly silent, it felt as if the world had escalated into an apocalyptic place but upon opening a single social media app, you would be diverted into a world of love and hatred all at once. The impacts of COVID were here to stay. Humankind still has a fright of falling sick, the common cold is no longer considered mild, but threatening. After the horrifying 9/11 incident, trust was seldom present amongst us. After the COVID - 19 pandemic, fear was present amongst us, you never know who could be a genesis to tragedy. Virus screenings, along with security screenings, were now one of the rituals when you visit a public place. Overthrowing happiness as the most common feeling, fear resided for free amongst citizens around the world.

Not all has changed, though. The clouds over the global economy are still ominous and don’t seem to be moving ahead. A global medical emergency caused by the virus, led to a self inflicted economic crisis as a necessary response to contain its spread. And yet as time has passed, it has also become clear that much of what is distressing about the crisis isn’t new at all. Different variations in COVID - 19 infections reflect existing economic inequalities. Poverty has reached its height, as unemployment and inflation rates soar through the sky. The pandemic also forced nations to make policies for universal healthcare. It also led to advancements in epidemiology, virology and development of vaccines.

30 years after the end of the pandemic, life on Earth isn’t far from different to 2020. Nevertheless, it is unquestionably different from what we had imagined. We still yearn for a better tomorrow. It may seem egoistic, but the world was filled with joy, now humankind had adapted a cold social behaviour, isolating oneself from the rest. Standing alone on a mountain top, I let the blasts of air slap me in the face like a thousand angry hands. Nature was the only possession we hadn’t lost in this race against COVID - 19, and I had to do everything to protect it. Undeniably, the pandemic gave us a chance to reimagine the future and losing it would mean accepting defeat. Defeat of humankind! We can’t let go! We won’t let go! The world threw many problems at us, 30 years later we finally obliterated them. The beginning is the end and the end is the beginning. The beginning is over, now the end shall commence!