This Means War

Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.

Winston Churchill

I think the framing that society is using around this pandemic is all wrong. We need to get into a wartime mindset. The fact that the enemy doesn’t have a face doesn’t mean that it’s any less deadly. The average person is probably more likely to die from COVID-19 than during a war, which would disproportionately affect soldiers on battlefields. 

If we think of social distancing as analogous to the blackouts in Britain during World War II, in addition to thousands dying in traffic accidents due to inadequate lighting (I recently learned this), people were inconvenienced for YEARS. Yet society still sacrificed and went to great lengths to maintain the blackouts because they recognized that it would save the most lives. Social distancing is no different, and yet people are acting like it should be optional or voluntary. 

I’m beside myself that the masses are getting antsy; it’s only been a few months!!! This is going to be the long haul. This is going to be life-altering. We will never be the same. Our kids may never be as carefree as we were at the same age. People will die of hunger and suicide due to economic consequences, but that doesn’t mean that strict public health measures are wrong. We are at war with this virus—reframing it in that way puts all of this into perspective. We need to stop looking for the bad guy—the virus is the bad guy. Social distancing isn’t harming the economy; the virus is. We must band together to get through this, and we will lose people along the way, but doing what we can to lose the smallest possible number is the best we can hope for. 

I certainly don’t have all the answers, but I am disheartened at people aiming their hostility at people who are making the hard decisions to save lives. People who are at war understand that they can’t have regular access to seemingly mundane things like haircuts, trips to the movies, or birthday parties. 

We are at war. 

We need to start acting like it.