Lessons from the Pandemic
I was born in the last century, 1993, and was blessed with twins in 2018.
If my children have kids when they are twenty-five, in 2043, my message to those babies will be a warning for their grandchildren. They will be born around 2093 and they will be in a similar position I currently am in during the next global pandemic.
History repeats itself, I’ll say. In 1720, it was the bubonic plague. Between 1817 and 1824, cholera ravaged the world. At the end of the Great War, 1918, influenza took its toll. Yet even with these precedents, my generation was still side swiped by the disease which came out of China.
To my great-great-grandchildren, I will pass on the lessons I have learned: that in the second decade of each century, a new malady strikes out at humankind and puts us in our place. Mother Nature will always strive to cull the herd and, all too often, the stupidity of people will aid her.
I will implore them to learn humility and empathy, to be weary of the coming threat and to keep their loved ones safe. I will advise they study biology or pathology to ensure they are best placed to understand the new infection.
But above all else I will stress these three words:
‘Buy toilet paper.’