What Have I Learned in 2020?

I have learned a lot more about the travel industry. The travel industry is an enormous worldwide industry which may or may not have contributed in a huge way to the spread of the virus. I knew travel was big, but it’s much bigger than I really understood.

I now somehow see what should have been clear to me but what I have not ever read or heard spoken aloud. Travel is a status symbol! How did I not know this? People travel and take risks and spend money to gain status and be admired. They go to frightening lengths to get a selfie in outrageous or even ordinary places. Outrageous places like private property which is damaged and destroyed by the selfie-seekers, and ordinary places like The Louvre where people with no interest in art history queue for hours to get to take a selfie of themselves with the Mona Lisa in the background. They do all this for status. To be admired by people who don’t care about them or matter to them.

Covid restrictions have brought this status seeking to a sudden standstill. In New Zealand, the international tourist industry was so huge that the infrastructure couldn’t really deal with the visitors, and damage was being caused to our beautiful country. Now there are still tourists here but mainly it’s now New Zealanders visiting their own country and enjoying it.

I’ve learned that our Government is not doing a good job because it is not preparing for the future by training more nurses or building more ICUs or training special ‘Covid nurses’ or building dedicated MIQ facilities despite expecting to need the facilities for 12 to 18 more months.

I’ve learned that some people will knowingly go to public places like shops even when they have Covid symptoms – they do not all self-isolate as instructed to do so and as is expected of them. Normally this wouldn’t matter but when it means the country might have another lockdown if they do this it’s a serious matter.

I’ve learned that the MIQ facilities are not as fool-proof as the Government would like us to believe. This puts the country at risk of a future lockdowns.

I’ve learned that people can be controlled very effectively by fear.

I’ve learned that people are more docile and willing to obey unreasonable rules without question than I would have ever thought possible.

I’ve learned about Zoom meetings and Zoom webinars.

I’ve learned a whole new vocabulary like Covid, covidiot, covid-denier, managed isolation, lockdown (a prison term – aptly named), safetyism, R number, PPE, R rate, PCR test.

I’ve learned that families are split when some in the family disagree with lockdowns as a solution to virus spreading, and others agree with it.

I’ve learned that friendships are lost because of disagreements in beliefs about Covid.

I’ve learned to be thankful for every blessing, small and big, for every breath I take.

I’ve come to hate the term ‘Keep safe’ or ‘Be safe’ or ‘Stay safe’. I prefer ‘Keep hugging’, or ‘God bless’ or ‘Stay sane’.

I have found great comfort in God and in praying and reading the Scriptures. What is there to fear when we have God?

At the beginning of this year I am concerned about how dangerous the virus might be. But by late March I am thinking that the lockdowns are worse and cause more problems than the disease it is trying to control. And now at the end of the year I believe this even more. I am disappointed that lockdowns are still being used around the world to control the virus.

Spain has had mandatory mask wearing in public for many months, and yet the number of ‘cases’ continue to be high in Spain. If masks work to prevent Covid spreading why is Covid still spreading even when people are wearing masks?

It appears to me that masks don’t actually stop Covid from spreading. And why would they? The science bears out the fact that a disposable paper mask is not going to prevent a microscopic virus from entering a body. And a reusable cloth mask – the same. But wearing a mask does mean that you are breathing oxygen-depleted air and so are at risk of suffering mask-caused illness.

Have I changed my mind about anything as the year has progressed? I think that if the world had closed the borders the disease might have been controlled early on. But when things reach a certain level it’s time to work out how to live with the disease. That’s where we should be now. We should be looking at how we live with Covid, just as we live with flu and colds which are both highly contagious, seasonal illnesses. It won’t be easy, but how can it be otherwise? What’s the alternative? A life of regular lockdowns? People never touching each other or leaving their homes? People constantly afraid? Governments keeping up excessive control? I don’t know.

Looking Ahead

As 2020 comes to a close the virus and the epidemic of fear and terror have not gone away. It’s not over by a long chalk. We continue to be bombarded every single day with headlines of increased ‘cases’, hospitalisations and deaths. A focus on stories of people who suffer more than usual with Covid, doctors who are ‘shocked’ or ‘taken aback’ by some Covid fact, numbers of ‘cases’ rising, and countries going back into lockdowns. The lockdowns are getting harsher with more restrictions on populations about what they are allowed to do and where they are allowed to go and with whom they are allowed to be. People are allowing it, not resisting and in fact, dobbing each other in for breaking the rules. Governments are using lockdown more readily and with less explanation and more confidence. They know they can do it and that they won’t face too much pushback.

What has the New Zealand Government been doing over the past few months to prepare for winter when the virus almost certainly will return? Are they training new dedicated Covid nurses? Preparing to have many more ICU beds? Offering enticements to New Zealanders without work to train in fruit and veggie picking so that we don’t need to import thousands of overseas workers? Bringing in only truly essential workers like highly skilled engineers to work on equipment like water filter sites?

None of these actually. Not a single one of these. We have no extra hospital beds, no newly trained workers. But we do have heaps of rich foreign tourists, celebrities, sportspeople and their servants being allowed to enter New Zealand. How does that work? And why?

Earlier in 2020 I believe that eventually the powers-that-be will realise that lockdowns are not the solution and countries will find ways of dealing with Covid and living daily life with the virus, as we do for other contagious diseases. I hope that we will stay Covid-free in New Zealand until that time so that we wouldn’t have any more damaging lockdowns. And I hope that when Covid does return we also will learn to live with it. That isn’t happening. We are still free of Covid in the community in New Zealand, but when Covid returns to the community I expect that New Zealand will go back into lockdown. And for how long then?

People are saying they can’t wait to end the year of 2020. It has been a year of great pain, suffering, inconvenience, fear, confusion, loneliness. They want it gone. This disappoints and annoys me. We will not be leaving these awful things behind in 2021. The year changes but the situations and the problems will remain. 2021 offers no guarantees of these things coming to an end. In fact, it’s entirely possible that 2020 is just the first year of a new way of life , rather than a terrible year that we can put behind us and go back to the old, comfortable way of life.

One thing I wonder about is what difference a new President of United States of America will make after 20 January 2021. The President-elect, Joe Biden, says he has a Covid-response team. He says he wants one hundred days of mask wearing to stop the virus. Will that happen? Will one hundred days of masks stop the virus? Does the mask stop the virus?

MSM hate President Trump whereas Joe Biden continually gets a good press. I am interested to see if MSM will start to change its stories. Will they start looking for good news in the Covid story? Will they stop focusing on numbers of positive test results, calling them ‘cases’ when 80% of them are symptom free? Will they start looking at the bigger picture, including percentages rather than numbers? Will we see Covid continue being described as a ‘deadly, highly contagious’ disease? The word ‘deadly’ is used frequently.

For now, I can stop my daily routine of reading the news which is often alarming, and searching for information. I can focus on my daily life in real time and pay less attention to the discouraging and disturbing news items rolled out each day.

Whoever would have dreamt a year ago, in their worst nightmare, that the world would live through 2020 in such chaos, confusion and pain? That people would willingly allow their governments to impose such restrictions on the population?

The worldwide economic consequences of these non-debated government policies and restrictions are catastrophic. In the USA I read that there are about 60 million jobs lost, many never to return. A hundred and fifty thousand restaurants have gone bankrupt. Only one in three museums will ever reopen. More people than ever are homeless, hungry, or both.

The rich are getting richer. Celebrities are jetting about, enjoying holidays and comfortable surroundings while telling hoi polloi they must sacrifice their wellbeing, freedoms and finances, to take care of the planet. Politicians in many countries have broken their own instructions to stay at home and not see family or friends, and gone visiting mistresses or family or friends.

In New Zealand I hear people often saying we have beaten the virus. We have NOT beaten the virus! We have temporarily restricted the virus’s ability to enter New Zealand by having border protection. But it isn’t fool-proof, and the likelihood of Covid being in the community is high in my opinion. That we will be back in lockdown one or several times during 2021 and beyond is a strong likelihood. But people are not thinking that way and are not behaving as though it might happen. And the authorities don’t appear to be preparing for it either.

Is the worldwide Covid fear pandemic part of a conspiracy to have the ‘Great Reset’ or is it a result of incompetent governments? I prefer to kindly believe it is incompetence and fear of looking bad on behalf of Western governments. I hope and wish that I am right.

Will this incompetence ever be uncovered and spoken about openly, or will it continue to be hidden from the general public and spoken about only terms of conspiracy theories? I suspect that I will never hear it being spoken about openly as the management disaster it is.

Will things start to return to normal in 2021? I don’t think so. In fact, I am afraid that things might escalate even more.

Will Ivermectin and other treatments start to be used to combat the disease in sick people? Will there be other treatments? Will this lead to people being not so afraid of the virus?

Will we have the Olympic Games in Japan, already delayed by a year? Maybe Japan will have a Covid Olympic Games with no spectators and lots of rules for competitors. At the moment Japan is saying that the Games will go ahead as usual. They are hopeful.

Will holidays, international travel and holiday cruises take off again? Certainly the rich and the top politicians will continue to live their comfortable lives wherever they wish, and they will get away with flouting rules wherever and whenever they want. But for the rest of us; the non-politicians, the not-rich-and-famous, for us all, for most of the planet I believe 2021 will continue to be different and with continued stress and restrictions. But maybe there might be a groundswell of everyday people who will start to resist. I live in hope.