The Pandemic’s “Final Stretch”
Now’s not the time to skirt the challenge the time presents
By Matthew Voigt
After nearing 30 million cases and over a half million American deaths from COVID-19 at the time of writing this article,vaccines now bring an end in sight for the pandemic. We just have to get there, right?
The reality is that the vaccines, praised by many as a savior to our woes, won’t and can’t solve the sores of racism, sexism, ableism, and homophobia so blatantly exposed this last year. The pandemic, if nothing else, has made it abundantly clear how woefully underprepared and undereducated they were to deal with the onslaught of nonstop crises this past year brought. Hospitals ICUs overwhelmed with patients and running out of PPE, educators trying to figure out the litany of online class structures and systems, even morgues beginning to store bodies in freezer trucks because too many people were dying too quickly. All of this with only minimal help and guidance from the federal government.
Regardless of what political bigwigs say, there isn’t just one crisis. These are countless crises, intersecting and feeding off each other viciously. One simple solution is impossible for multiple crises.
However this is 2021, and there’s vaccines and a new administration that believes in the experts and probably won’t try to usurp the Congress of the United States. The awfulness of last year is behind us, right? Technically yes, the past is in the past. However, we now have to deal with the effects and ramifications of a severely strained healthcare system, an education system struggling, and an attempt to thwart an election and usurp Congress.The question should not be if the crises and times are unprecedented, because they clearly are. Rather, the question should be how we fix the crises and stop the inferno of problems that affect the country right now. What are the solutions to the problems and crises? Will there be another crisis? How do we prevent another crisis?
Now is the time to take the lessons learned in the chaos and apply them to the future. The best time to change society was before it blew up in our face, but the second best time is now. Let our collective grief, trauma, and anger fuel the dousing of the fire of chaos so the past year won’t be repeated. Instead of returning to the old normal that got us here, we should instead work towards constructing the new normal.
That old normal led to hospitals and morgues overflowing with people, students and educators annoyed and stressed about requirements, and discriminatory practices in justice, just to name a few issues. The old ways have left almost a half million dead; that’s as if the entire city of Minneapolis died and then you killed nearly a fourth of Saint Paul. The people who advocate for returning to the old normal forget how it wasn’t working for many Americans. If the old normal led a half million to the grave, and millions more infected with a novel disease, it seems pretty clear that the old normal wasn’t working and could not have been great.
A new normal will take time, but by constructing a new normal that works for all people, there’s a better chance a future situation could lessen the hardship inflicted. By embracing the lessons of hardship, educating ourselves on racism, sexism, ableism, and homophobia, only then can we truly begin to live up the American promises of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
While vaccines may allow us to start to hope about what the future may bring, vaccines alone won’t solve the problems. We must take up the challenge that these unprecedented times bring. We learned that we can’t take the democractic experiment for granted, and many people learned how prejudiced the system actually is. The fight to make America live up to its promise isn’t just beginning, it's been fought for over 250 years. The American people’s spirit, and our belief that tyranny and bigotry won’t be tolerated, has only been reinvigorated.
Wherever we are heading and however the future may take shape is still being decided. However, we can decide how we want the future to be. While the current trajectory is bound to change again and the journey may seem endless, keep an eye on the future. Better times are ahead, even if we have to fight for lives.