“Perceptions,” by Gerry Warner

Op-Ed Commentary

If nothing else, one thing should be clear in the COVID-19 crisis now gripping the world – we’re being tested.

Every single one of us is being tested. So, do we throw our hands up in despair like a bunch of wussies or do we act like adults and recognize the problem for what it is and deal with it in a realistic and strategic way? Personally, I favour the latter, and believe it or not, I see lots of reasons for optimism.

First of all, we live in Cranbrook, far off the beaten path and well away from the major epicentres of the disease in China, Italy and Iran. And in China, the worst of the pandemic is over with the John Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Centre reporting March 19 no new cases in Hubei province where the pandemic first broke out in late December. That’s less than three months to bring COVID-19 to heel and a death toll far less than the great pandemics of the past like the Spanish Flu and the Bubonic Plague.

Having said that, we can’t let our guard down for a second and we should rigorously follow all the public health advice being given to us from regular hand washing and  social distancing to restricted travel, self-isolation and just practising common sense in our daily lives.

And I’d like to suggest one more “common sense” thing to do even though as a retired journalist it pains me do do it – lay off your daily feed of media whether it be Facebook, Twitter or social media of any kind as well as CBC, CTV, CNN, FOX News, the National Post, Globe and Mail, Vancouver Sun or any other Sun newspaper.

I’m not saying that most of the aforementioned aren’t credible to some degree but a steady diet of their incessant COVID-19 coverage is enough to drive any sane person to the funny farm or worse. Take a break from it.

Go out for a walk in the wonderful fresh air and sunny weather of the past week. Catch up on your reading, finish the basement downstairs, take up a new hobby, walk the dog, go on a diet, quit smoking, get serious about exercise, try needlepoint, write a poem – there’s so many new things you could do  in this enforced period of restricted activity that were now trapped in.

At the Warner household, we dusted off the bread-making machine and baked up a batch of orange, poppy seed, breakfast bread. Yum, yum!

But make no mistake about it, I think what we’re experiencing now is a shot across the bow. Pandemics like COVID-19 are a regular feature of human history and have occurred from time immemorial and taken millions of lives, not thousands. As pandemics go, COVID-19 is relatively weak because the great majority of its victims recover quite quickly. That may not be the case with the next pandemic to afflict us.

In case you’ve forgotten, the HIV/AIDS pandemic, which broke out in 2005 killed 36 million before antiretroviral drugs were developed that could control it and is still killing people in sub-Saharan Africa.

The 1918 Spanish Influenza pandemic at the end of the First World War killed 20 million to 50 million – no one is sure how many – including more than 50 people in Cranbrook. And then there’s the flu of all flues – the Bubonic Plague or “Black Death” of the 14th Century – which is estimated to have killed 75 million to 200 million or almost a third of the world’s population. And the virus that caused the dreadful Black Death still exists in isolated areas of the world today, but now there are drugs to treat it which isn’t the case for COVID-19 yet.

As I said earlier – a shot across the bow – and it’s a shot that we should all heed to the best of our abilities and assiduously follow the directions we’ve been getting from the medical community and public health officials.

My gut feeling is this will be all over by the end of spring and life will go on as we’re accustomed to. But keep one thing in mind – we’ve been warned!

– Gerry Warner is a retired journalist, who is finding out that people enjoy being more than six feet or two meters away from him.

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