What the Coronavirus Taught Humanity

Coronavirus became more than a pandemic. It is a big “pause” button to human life that no one expected to happen. It is something no one wanted but it’s what the world needed — a break from our destructive ways. Pollution eased due to reduced human activity and reports of better air quality have been reported in various populated cities.

The COVID-19 caused by coronavirus is an unprecedented crisis on a global scale, but it also helped us realize quite a few valuable lessons.

1. We are not prepared for a pandemic

We saw the virus coming, thanks to the “Contagion” movie, yet it still caught us by surprise. We were not able to contain the virus from its source and it reached almost every corner of the world way before countries implemented strict safety procedures against virus transmission. 

Health care systems were on the brink of collapse. The global shortage of important medical equipment resulted in unnecessary fatalities not only of the infected but also of our own healthcare frontliners.

It also showed many people cannot handle the pandemic in general. News of the COVID-19 caused many people to panic and hoard goods and PPE, depriving those who need it more during the crisis. In Italy, a leaked coronavirus plan to quarantine a region caused people to panic and flee which even made infection and virus transmission worse.

2. Health is everything

Needless to say, our health is the topmost priority in the war against the virus. We closed cities, states, and countries. The economy was left to suffer from closures and lockdowns in a desperate bid to stop the spread of infection. During this pandemic, to say “Health is wealth” is an understatement. We are forced to sacrifice our freedom, jobs, lifestyle and everything else to protect human lives.

 3. We are vulnerable to an “invisible” enemy

The coronavirus reminded me of the 2008 film “The Day The Earth Stood Still.” In a nutshell, the movie is about a more intelligent alien race readying to wipe out all traces of humanity using some kind of nano-machine. No wall, missile, or technology was effective in killing these microscopic creatures that devour anything in its path.

The only thing we lack today is the aliens. With all the technology available, the world was still caught off-guard by this invisible threat. We are still waiting for a cure and vaccine after it had already infected millions of people and claimed hundreds of thousands of lives.

4. The internet is still limited

As people turned to streaming and social media to pass their time at home, the internet traffic became so congested that some providers and even giant sites like YouTube and Netflix throttled speed to keep up with the bandwidth demand. This is something unheard of knowing we are in the age of the cloud and many, if not most, services rely on the Internet properly working.

As schools turn to online learning, no video conferencing platform or support will ever compare to giving quality education to our kids the way they are taught in the classrooms. Kids simply don’t have the self-discipline and attention span as adults do.

5. The future is uncertain

It’s been said it’ll take months or years before we’ll ever have a safe and effective cure and vaccine. We do not know when the economy will ever bounce back and how socializing will look by then.

Even if everything gets back to “normal,” the question is what and when will there be a new global threat. After suffering heavy losses, we most certainly learned our lesson and all we can do is hope that we will be prepared for the next “one” — another pandemic, world war, nuclear holocaust, or zombie apocalypse.

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