As the pandemic recedes in the U.S. we must never forget. (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)
Getty ImagesNancy Pelosi has announced a bipartisan Congressional Capitol Riot Committee to review the events of January 6 in the nation’s capital. It’s the right thing to do. We must never forget the events of January 6. Even more important, we must never forget the changes the pandemic wrought in our society.
Since 1978, license plates in the Quebec province of Canada have sported the phrase “Je me souviens” which translates to “I remember” in English. The meaning is obscure but is thought to have something to do with the French heritage of the province, which periodically leads to independence movements.
As the COVID-19 pandemic moves swiftly into the rearview mirror of American history, we need to make sure we carry our own version of “I remember.” We must never forget what we have been through in this experience. It’s a natural human tendency to move on from tragedy, and there are powerful forces that will encourage that tendency. A market economy needs to keep producing and growing. But as important as it is to get back to normal as quickly as possible, it's equally important that we never forget this global nightmare and our country’s woeful initial response in fighting it. As good as our nation’s response is now, it was inexcusably bad only a year ago. And the same forces that created that response are still present in the DNA of our body politic today.
To be sure, once this experience is behind us, we will look back fondly on some of our naive responses. Before the virus was confirmed as largely airborne, we weren’t sure about whether to mask up or not. At first, we didn’t, to save PPE for medical professionals, then as companies shifted production and a thousand points of PPE emerged on Etsy, masks became required, plentiful, and colorful, placing a billboard of sorts on every face. At first, we hoarded toilet paper and Purell, and we either scoured each item of mail or delivered groceries or waited three days to touch them. My family created a loading dock in our garage with folding tables and plastic bins that were scrubbed and alternated.
Weddings and graduations were canceled or postponed. Sadly, so were funerals. School moved to Zoom, creating whole new educational challenges and social cues. Zoom backgrounds were rated. The industries that Zoom replaced: travel and business meetings went into freefall, some saved by government intervention, some allowed to fail. There were plenty of metaphors for the plight of society, like the eerily empty Saint Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City as the Pope celebrated Easter and Christmas Mass.
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Entertainment did what it could to take advantage of millions of viewers stuck inside with little to do but watch their screens. New hits emerged—John Krasinski's Some Good News became the flavor of the day. Tiger King and The Queen’s Gambit had their moments in the sun. Comedy did its best to keep the jokes flowing, whether from individual homes of SNL cast members, the bathtub of Stephen Colbert, or the attic of Seth Meyers. Samantha Bee reported from a huge open field and periodically lost her mind on screen.
There were plenty of jokes about President Trump and his administration. The jokes were funny, but they were also sad. In the midst of a need for national unity and an embrace of science, Trump and his team played politics, insisting that the virus would go away “like magic,” embracing unproven theories like taking bleach or hydroxychloroquine, and unqualified doctors like Scott Atlas. There will be myriad books and studies produced to remind us just how kooky and dangerous he and his team were, but it's important never to forget.
The politics became ugly as more and more Americans passed away, the death toll now reaching more than 600,000—near the number of fatalities from our greatest national tragedy, the Civil War. Armed “patriots” showed up at state capitols to extoll freedom and the right to bear arms. Encouraging such behavior led to predictable nefarious outcomes, like the attempt to kidnap the Democratic governor of Michigan and, most shocking of all, the deadly insurrection in the nation’s Capitol on January 6.
We don’t want to think about these things because if we thought about them for too long, we would take our focus off the future. America has always been about the future, about progress and making life better. But remembering doesn’t mean wallowing. We can do two things at once—remember what happened and make plans so that it will never happen again.
The Link LonkJune 25, 2021 at 05:03AM
https://www.forbes.com/sites/williamjeakle/2021/06/24/we-must-never-forget-the-pandemic/
We Must Never Forget The Pandemic - Forbes
https://news.google.com/search?q=forget&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US:en
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