pandemic reflections
What Will We Learn From This Pandemic?
Memory Lessons From The Greatest Generation
Dear Subscribers: This is a story from my Medium archives that I thought might interest you as a reflection of the pandemic from 18 months ago. How much we still have to learn, and it’s not even behind us yet. Thanks so much for reading!
When COVID-19 recedes — as eventually it will — into our collective rear view, what aspects of this pandemic will we carry forward? The subjective nature of memory will doubtless shape the reflections that emerge, but the value we place on memory itself also will play a role. Given the shrinking attention span of our screen-dependent culture, we risk squandering the insights that this crisis offers, but the choice is ours.
If we choose to keep and examine our memories — remembering, as the saying goes, that past is prologue — they can help us prepare for and prevent future crises. But historian and MD Howard Markel describes the perennial challenge: “Once an epidemic peters out and susceptible individuals die, recuperate, or escape, life begins to return to its normal patterns, and healthy people begin to place the epidemic in the past.”
In certain parts of the country, we saw this process starting almost immediately, as crowds flocked…
