This Covid-19 corona virus pandemic has markedly changed our short-term behaviour. Schools, libraries, community centers, gyms,dine-in restaurants and most stores are closed. We are told to stay home as much as possible. It is inconvenient, to say the least. I am getting what Canadians call “cabin fever”, a feeling of restlessness, the need to go out and do something.
All is not lost. There are benefits to our new self-isolation.
This corona virus, CoVid-19, originally from Wuhan, China, has decimated parts of China, and especially Wuhan. China’s control strategies were brutal. Here in the West we cannot implement the rough measures that China took. Instead we have opted for rigorous contact tracing investigations, blocking borders and social distancing. I don’t know if this will be sufficient to control the virus. We can only wait and see. For certain, our regular way of life must change, We’re not going back to normal, and for many months.
It is always difficult to see someone die after they did the right thing and told the truth. Li Wenliang, an ophthalmologist in Wuhan, China, did just that. For telling is circle of 8 doctor friends about a new virus spreading through his hospital, he was called to the police station and made to sign a confession for speaking out without authorization from the higher authorities. His friend circle were fellow doctors. He would later die from the very disease, CoVid-19, that he talked about.