An essay by Mackenzie Lynne Brock
Citizenship II, 4th Hour
Beshear Middle School, 4/22/2076
In times of comfort and prosperity it is important to pause and reflect on how we got to the place we are as a society. While the influences that have shaped our world are many, there is one that stands out: the Coronavirus Pandemic of 2020-2022.
How, you might wonder, could something so terrible have led to the world we enjoy today? Well there are many reasons. It is instructive and useful to review them.
The coronavirus was a terrible virus, ten times more fatal than influenza.
It originated in China in late 2019 and literally spread around the world in less than 90 days. By the time a vaccine had been developed and provided to all nations, almost 200 million people died around the world.
It is difficult to imagine that in a world that already had the Internet, it would have been such a problem to take proper precautions and contain the spread of the coronavirus. Nonetheless, this problem persisted. Some nations, like South Korea responded effectively and slowed the spread of the virus to where it was manageable. Other nations, our own included, did too little too late, causing the United States to lead the world as the nation where it spread the most quickly and needlessly killed the most.
To understand how this tragedy could bring about so much change in our society, it is important to remember what our nation was like back then. We were a divided nation from both a political and social standpoint. The president at the time was Donald Drump, and the United States Senate was under the control of the Republican Party, which at that time was one of only two major political organizations in the country. The policies of the president and his party favored the wealthy and removed or weakened government protections of citizens. It is also felt by many historians today that the Russian government was influencing events to bring these changes about to weaken America.
It is in the context of this presidential administration, which history has since deemed to have been a disaster that the response to coronavirus was so mishandled. The president misinformed the public on a daily basis about the spread of the virus and how to contain it so few citizens were clear on how to protect themselves. The federal government did not respond effectively to either provide states with necessary supplies or to perform the correct testing to understand the spread of the virus and the actual risk to people. The president’s need for praise and his desire to hurt his enemies are said to have clouded his judgment at this crucial moment in the nation’s history.
Historians today have also expressed the view that the president’s political party prioritized remaining in power over the needs of the country. By not overruling the president, which was their sworn duty under the Constitution, they aided and abetted the negligent behaviors that cost so many hundreds of thousands of lives.
But these are not the only factors that influenced events. There was only one Internet in those days, and it was poorly used as it was still relatively new and many people had not quite gotten the hang of it yet. Many people posted irresponsibly on the Internet, spreading misinformation about the virus and about those who were honestly trying to fight it and contain it. There was nothing in place to discourage this very negative trend. You would think that the Internet would have been a major force for dealing with the virus, but that is not as true as we would like to believe.
It is also true that the culture of our grandparents’ generation was not as positive and nurturing as the one we enjoy in the here and now. There was little unity or empathy to be found. People were very divided because of political and social influences, and racism was very prominent. Even though it was a time when people could communicate more easily than ever before and they had access to more information, they did not take the opportunity all too often.
Another important factor is the economy of the nation in those days. It was not very stable because too much money was pulled from circulation by those who had the most. There was great inequality between the people who did the work and those who profited from it, and this inequality was actually supported by the people who made the laws in Washington. But it was not all their fault. The typical citizen was encouraged to spend money foolishly and unnecessarily which boosted profits for companies, but left many people unprepared for hard times.
And there was one last very important factor. Health care for the average person in the United States at that time was not easily affordable or accessible, even though all the other major countries of the world had strong health care systems and demonstrated to the United States how they could work. This is because health care was an industry for making profits, not for people’s well-being.
My theory is this: the coronavirus changed all of that. Allow me to explain.
The coronavirus was a respiratory disease, which means that it was transmitted by breathing it into the lungs. It could also be caught by getting it on your hands and then touching your mouth or nose. The way to defend against it was to simply not be around other people. By the hundreds of millions, people all around the world just stopped going to work or shopping and stayed in their homes so they could not catch or spread it.
This caused the economies of many nations to drastically drop and in some cases, collapse altogether. Even the richest nations, like our own, were severely impacted by the decline of productivity and the lack of people in the workforce. Essential things like food and water became scarce and medical supplies were most scarce of all.
Now here is where the story changes. While even the experts first told the public that the practice of social isolation would last for weeks, it turned out to last many months because the virus returned even stronger in the later part of 2020. President Drump’s attempts to delay the presidential election in November of that year were not successful and he was replaced, but the new President Joseph Biden was still faced with the ravages and dangers of an even sicker population of infected citizens and longer isolation for those who were not.
When a vaccine finally arrived, it was difficult to get it into the hands of doctors and other health professionals around the world and so it took many more months to properly inoculate entire populations. But after more than two long years, the coronavirus subsided. It is still with us today, of course, but it is easily managed and no one dies of it anymore.
How, you might ask, could all of these terrible events have led us to a better world? Here are my thoughts.
Because of the coronavirus pandemic, the new Democratic administration and legislature in the United States moved quickly to establish a universal healthcare system that not only was accessible to all, but could respond quickly and effectively to future pandemics. Many attempts to create such a system had been attempted in previous years, but it took coronavirus to finally make it happen.
Because the effects of coronavirus were shared so publicly on the Internet, a society-wide re-evaluation of the importance of some people in society who were not deemed very important was able to occur. Nurses and other health care professionals came to be honored, where they had once been taken for granted. People who simply serve food to others were at risk every day, delivering meals to people’s doorsteps in their home isolation, and they came to be respected.
The culture of the early 21st century did not put much value in family. However, when families isolated themselves in their homes, they were able to bond once again and become close. Parents became more attentive overall and children came to respect and appreciate them more. This social change positively affected the next generation – our own parents.
Cooped up in homes, people returned to the lost tradition of preparing their own meals. For the previous fifty years or so it had become more common to go to a restaurant to eat, rather than eat at home. If you look at pics and videos from that era you will see that in some places there would be four or five restaurants all in a row next to each other, if you can believe it. This led to people spending unwisely and not eating in a healthy way. Today we have far fewer restaurants, and those we have are of far higher quality. Cooking meals at home and eating together is once again the tradition now.
Home life also led to better health through exercise. Since it was not permitted to go to public places to exercise or socialize, people began taking walks near their homes, careful to maintain distance from others. This contributed to their health and remains a popular activity even today.
The Internet may have been primitive by today’s standards but it made it possible for many people to continue to do their jobs from their homes during the many months of isolations. As a result, it became clear that this way of working was not only economical but efficient, and so tens of thousands of companies made it a standard practice, which eventually boosted their productivity and profits. It is still the standard practice today.
In a similar way, many unnecessary gatherings that were common at the time were never renewed. The practice for many industries was to have conventions, also called conferences, which would bring hundreds and sometimes thousands of colleagues from around the nation to one city in one place for days at a time. This was very expensive and inefficient, as the same interactions could occur through teleconferencing. This practice did not disappear altogether, but it ceased to be an industry, because coronavirus revealed that it was simply unnecessary.
The coronavirus also changed our political system for good. While it had become commonplace for politicians to deceive those they represented and favor the interests of the wealthy, often to the detriment of the public, the coronavirus became a ‘lie detector’. It was not possible to deceive the public for long about this deadly threat when the spread of the disease brought the reality of it closer to every family’s doorstep week by week. The public lost patience with the corrupt politicians in power and swept them from office, and favored those representatives who worked to put protections in place against deception and corruption.
The public also came to respect science far more than it had. If you can believe it, many political groups and social organizations actively tried to get people to distrust science and even ignore it. But scientists turned out to be the most accurate sources of information when it came to the coronavirus, and so public trust in science and scientists grew enormously.
This effect carried over to the Internet. People began to get better at knowing what sources of information they could and could not trust online, and the providers of Internet social environments were compelled by law and by the expectations of citizens to take more responsibility in making sure reliable information was presented on their sites.
In conclusion, the Coronavirus Pandemic was the defining tragedy of this century, claiming so many lives and overturning so much of society. However, the changes I have just presented make it clear that our world is much better today because of the pandemic, not in spite of it. If not for coronavirus, our world today would be very different, and very likely not as healthy and harmonious.
As we approach the 300th anniversary of our great nation, we must remain aware of how delicate and fragile our happiness and good fortune can become, without warning. We must rededicate ourselves to being aware of our history both good and bad, and remain committed to was is true and in the interests of all. The Coronavirus Pandemic will always remind us not only to hold firm to our history, but to our values.
I thank you for your attention.
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