4 minute read
BACK TO REALITY
A chronicle of a world of masks, temperature scans, zoom meetings, medical dances and vaccines.
Nobody would have believed the story that has unfolded over the last several years if it had been told some years ago. The coronavirus swept the world by storm and ushered in massive transformation. The shift was on the horizon, as predicted by futurists and trend analysts many years ago, but what many people did not foresee was that something would occur that would overhaul the world’s entire organization.
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Even though many people expected life to return to normal after the crisis, what was on the other side of the virus (or whatever it was) was a whole different world.
New Scientist published the first report on 59 cases of a strange pneumonia-like sickness in China, which were related to a wet market in Wuhan, on January 7, 2020. This was the first domino to fall that triggered a massive reaction chain in the world.
Less than a month after the first individual became ill, Chinese authorities discovered a wholly novel coronavirus as the source of the illness and sequenced its genome, according to the WHO. Wuhan is placed under heavy lockdown by the Chinese government on January 23. It became illegal to go in and out of the city. Two days later, the virus (which was at this point still unnamed), was first identified in Europe.
In February 2020, the disease was given the name “covid-19” or “coronavirus disease 2019” After the year the first cases were reported.
On February 20, Italy reported its first coronavirus death, and 50,000 people in ten municipalities in the country’s north were placed under quarantine. Eight days later, the first case is confirmed in the US. Italy became the first European country to enforce a statewide curfew on March 9. Sports activities have been rescheduled, schools and institutions have been canceled, and more than 60 million people have been told to stay at home. Many people were quarantined by the authorities, many quarantined by themselves. There was even a report of a nurse locking herself up in a room in a hospital and refusing to go out. Another viral video showed a woman that, when approached by the police, started (pretend-) coughing on them. And the craziness was just starting.
Soon after, on March 11, the World Health Organization designated covid-19 a pandemic.
For millions (if not billions) of people around the world, what followed was a period marked by strangeness and, above all, confusion. In an attempt to benefit from the pandemic, thousands of covid domains appeared on the internet.
Many people panicked as a result of the lockdown, while others created social media “creations” and shared concerts and other cultural events online.
For many, digital education became the standard, and remote employment became the norm.
People were not allowed to leave their homes, and stories of break-outs from the imposed house arrest began to circulate, some in the form of jokes (a whole building walking a dog on a rotating basis) and others in the form of ridiculous cautionary stories about cops slapping fines on anyone they saw on the street. Especially at night.
Curfews and other laws that made little to no sense were only supposed to be in effect for a limited time, while medical systems caught up to what was going on. This, however, was not going to change anytime soon, and what had been a state of fear would soon become the politics of the day.
People used politics to vent their feelings about the crisis, and some even switched sides in the process.
The media, particularly the MSM (mainstream media), maintained the coronavirus narrative, which, as investigations revealed, complied with what it was taught and pushed a constant covid terror fest.
Mask mandates, people not being allowed to see each other, people being controlled at home, police break-ins on New Year’s, and other stores all go mainstream on the internet. People chatted about sad stories, canceled parties and gatherings, and found themselves in mind-numbing circumstances, but none of these were addressed publicly. People were watching movies about pandemics (such as Angels and Demons) to get a sense of what was about to happen.
As vaccines were becoming available (Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, and the outlawed Sputnik, which some claimed to be the finest), more people became dissatisfied with the global restrictions, especially in places like Australia, where they looked to be particularly draconian. Vaccines were wanted by many, then they were imposed (more or less directly) and then the heroes of yesterday, who were in the front lines helping, were now demonized if they refused to get the shot –and the second one – and the third one…
For many, the period between 2020 and mid-2022 was the fulfillment of a prophecy or, better said, a plan.
Even if we don’t recognize it yet, the pandemic, along with its (apparently futile) countermeasures, has brought numerous changes to the world. It normalized remote working, digital meetings, and schooling (no surprise the Metaverse became a big trend during the pandemic); and it pushed people to parts of their personalities they didn’t even realize they had – many people became their finest selves during these times, while others became their worst selves (or at least, they looked in that direction). People were urged to pay for things digitally, shop online, and pay for things digitally during these times. The crisis also forced many small business owners and people living paycheck to paycheck out of business. What is still extremely weird is that many people wore and still wear masks when alone in their cars or on the street while there is nobody else around. It seems that the medical pandemic was mirrored by a general psychosis. And it seems that it will return. If not, something else will, so it was promised. The effects these two years have had on education (which basically crashed) and mental wellbeing (which crashed as well) will be visible in time.