WE BEGIN 2025 with a plea from the World Health Organization for China to share information on how exactly COVID-19 began five years ago. Experts and policy makers need to understand the pandemic’s origins so the world could confront the next pandemic more effectively.
COVID killed and sickened millions, while some patients continue to suffer the effects of a long-term affliction. It caused health systems to collapse and economies to slow down or contract. Different countries’ responses were varied, and some coped better than others.
Five years on, the world has recovered, and now many people remember those days of COVID as they would remember a war — a significant, life-changing event that left bad memories and numerous lessons. That, or a nightmare.
Travel has resumed, business has picked up, schools have reopened, and people have gone back to their usual ways.
Health and economic lessons notwithstanding, it is good to recall the days of the pandemic as we mark the beginning of a new year today. Those days were marked by darkness, uncertainty, and impermanence – the very same things that led people to look inward and ask themselves what was truly important to them.
Often, wherever in the world, the answers tended to be the same: Being in the company of loved ones, virtually or otherwise. Staying healthy and starting/ maintaining good habits. Doing something of meaning.
Everything else was secondary.
COVID is still around but no longer at an alarming rate. Still, let us not lose touch with our realizations during those terrible years. May we begin this new year with a courageous look at the past to arm ourselves for the future, a clear vision of where we want to go, and a renewed commitment to cherish what is truly important.
