What I am really astonished about is how people are reacting these days. It is almost like this COVID-19 virus is bringing out the underlying nature of the people, their true selves, their hidden nature. I’ve seen people offering help to others, asking older neighbors if they can bring groceries so that they don’t have to take the risk to get infected when going to buy food. I have seen so much understanding and readiness to help others and many times from people I didn’t expect that.

And there is the other side. I have seen people hoarding resources, buying toilet paper, pasta, flour and can food to survive the next 10 years in isolation. They didn’t even waste a thought that this doesn’t work out if everyone is doing the same. I have seen so much egotism and selfishness within the last days, it is unbelievable. And also here, I’ve seen this from many people I would not have expected that. That’s actually sad, it is evidence of incapacity.

And there are so many people not caring about the rules at all, gathering up, organizing secret parties, crowding in parks, visiting friends and family members, etc. That’s so irresponsible towards the risk group, affected most by the virus.
It is again a kind of selfishness and pure self-interest. But where is this coming from? Is this foolishness and irresponsibility of the youth? Is this simply narrow-minded? Is this the true nature, how we really are when times become tough? Or is this shaped by upbringing and society?

It’s probably a mix of all of those and society plays a bigger role here. Most people in Central Europe are raised to be independent, self-sufficient. This isolates of course and thoughts about the well-being of others fade into the background, sadly.
Parents play big role here too. The way they deal with life is most often the role model for the next generation. Children learn by observing and they become what they see and with whom they are surrounded with.

Thinking about consequences is not too common anymore, sadly. But all actions have consequences, actively considered or not. There will always be consequences, some will surface earlier, some later and some we don’t see at all, but they are there.

Hence dear people consider this. There are humans out there dying lonely in hospital beds because of this virus. People with weakened immune system which do not have the strength to fight this virus as you do. Relatives are not allowed to visit to keep the virus from spreading further. Those people die alone somewhere in a sterile room. Imagine you would be that person.

Now think twice before you go out there to meet up, to have fun because you are bored, or for whatever selfish reason you might have. Think that you might be the one spreading the virus further leading to lonely deaths, maybe even in your own family. THINK!

It is a strange time, totally different from what we are used to. This virus changed it all, within a few weeks. We have been pushed out of our comfy bubble of pseudo-safety. And all of it because of a tiny virus, a variation of the flu.

Hundreds of thousands are infected meanwhile, many thousands died and the forecast, especially in the US, paints an even darker picture. Being locked down at home is the luckier variant, no doubt. But this entire situation slowly develops into a nightmare. Almost nobody had such a pandemic on the radar. We felt safe and invincible. But now look at us. We are certainly not. And we haven’t been prepared for such an outbreak, not at all. We had been unprepared like the people in 1918 when the Spanish flu hit humankind.

But looking at it in a more realistic way, such pandemics have had happened quite a few times in history before. There has been the Antonine plage in the Roman empire killing about 5 million people. And of course one of the most popular, the Black Death in the 13th century, which wiped out over half of the population of Europe. And not to forget, the Spanish flu in1918, killing 500 million people worldwide. Those things happened before, just not in our lifetime or the lifetime of our parents. So just because we didn’t have such an outbreak in our recent past, we shouldn’t feel so damn sure that this can not happen to us.

Actually the risk nowadays is higher than ever before, because of our mobility. Millions of people are travelling every day, everywhere around the globe. Of course, perfect conditions to distribute a virus quite fast into every country on this planet. And this is what happened with COVID-19. In combination with some egoism, ignorance and greed, it spreads even faster.

So actually we can be happy that this happened, as cruel as it might sound. This is the wake-up call for the world. Imagine this virus would have been deadlier, e.g. 50% death rate. In this case, half of the world’s population would die within the next months and nobody could do anything about it. The death rate of COVID-19 is still quite low. Let’s learn something from that pandemic and hopefully, we’ll be prepared next time when a much deadlier virus might come.