Thursday, 14 May 2020
IT'S hard to imagine how very different things would have been had Corvid19 occurred thirty or forty years ago. The internet was still a mere twinkle in most people's minds -- something still way into a future which only scientists and creative writers even dared to imagine. Few would have believed that by the second decade of the twenty first century almost sixty percent of the world's population would use it daily. Back then it would have seemed very Orwellian to think that people, even children, would have their own devices and be in some way connected to the internet for the best part of every day. Homework would be done on computer and assignments submitted online. The idea that one would be able to hold virtual meetings during which one could see and hear multiple other participants via a screen and tiny speakers would have felt positively alien.That this connectivity would merely require a telephone line or be available via radio signals that didn't even need any cables would have been deemed unthinkable to most.
Yet, here we are, talking to each other online, ordering goods and groceries, conducting virtual house parties and participating in all manner of classes and workshops from exercise and mindful classes, to art and creative writing workshops and academic and business conferences. If freelancing from home, enabling working around the needs of children and making the nightmare of the daily commute to the office redundant seemed innovative in the early 1990s, then what the politicians call 'the new normal' in which more people will be working from home, either through necessity or because the enforced lockdown has made them realise that working that way actually suits them will be a welcome, if unexpected, consequence of the pandemic. These will be people who won't miss the office politics, the unnecessarily long meetings or the exchange of gossip and small talk around the water cooler. They will be happy to be free from the frustrations of traffic jams, crowded trains and buses and will probably ponder on all the years they wasted commuting before Coronavirus ever entered everyday terminology. It is equally understandable, however, that for many the daily interaction with colleagues and friends is vital for their mental health and the motivation to carry out the jobs they are paid to do. For them, the Government's 'stay-at-home' message will have seemed like a prison sentence.
If working from home, for those whose jobs allows them to do so, does gain in popularity once, or indeed if, the Virus is eliminated, that does not mean that the millions across the globe who have lost their lives to it will be forgotten. We will also remember forever and with deep gratitude the many many health workers, volunteers and those providing essential services in food production and manufacturing during the crisis. Those who are finding the lockdown difficult for whatever reason -- due to feeling depressed, lonely or scared, perhaps -- and, most of all, those who are grieving the loss of loved ones or who are suffering domestic abuse because of the need to stay at home must be in our thoughts, also.
Although restarting the world's economies and getting them back on an even keel is important in the years to come, so is considering people's wellbeing in the aftermath of Corvid19 as they struggle to find their groove in the era of 'the new normal'. Will there ever be a life without the threat of Coronavirus hanging over us? Who knows -- it's too early to tell. Undoubtedly, as in the wake of other major events, such as the two World Wars and 9/11, much will be written and created, not merely to inform the public, but also as cathartic expressions, allowing authors and artists to put their personal experiences of the Annus Horribilis that 2020 is turning out to be into perspective.
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