COVID

Collective Courage and Individual Distance

Category: The Uncontrollable

A new Covid hashtag is trending on Twitter: #IStayHome, but social media is the last thing on my mind this week. Outside, all is quiet. The normally bustling thoroughfare radiates the eerie stillness of a cul-de-sac. Fortunately, a few children playing on an adjacent side road breathe some life into the scene. Indoors, I fret over the grey blanket spreading across the globe—a particularly cold blanket, as I learn that a close relative is unwell. To everyone's relief, it is not Covid, yet does that make diagnosed pneumonia any less severe? These are suddenly strange times.

Across the entire globe, Covid is taking hold of our respiratory systems. Photo: J. Gauthier

Time as a relative concept

According to Prime Minister Mark Rutte, we are facing the greatest crisis since the Second World War. It is a reality that, for some, only began to dawn last month. Back then, organisers of major sporting events were still frantically trying to cling to pre-Covid schedules. Some went to extraordinary lengths. For instance, the FIA Formula 1 opening Grand Prix in Australia was cancelled less than one hour before its scheduled start. Four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel was alreaddy on a plane home. To him, one thing was paramount: health comes before profit.

Whilst the entire world grinds to a halt, creaking and groaning, the KNVB and Eredivisie clubs in the Netherlands continue to bicker over completing their remaining fixtures. Covid is indifferent to their disputes. If the KNVB is not careful, the health of every player will soon be caught—at least a metre and a half—offside. Indeed, if Covid makes anything clear, it is that the pandemic respects no appointments. It strips businesses, citizens, and governments of control over a society we once believed to be so 'malleable'.

Hotels are closing their doors in increasing numbers due to the coronavirus. Photo: Jeffrey Czum

That once-malleable society is slowly 'viralising' into an unyielding block of steel; no purposeful step-by-step plan offers any remedy. School exams are cancelled en masse, holidays aborted, surgeries postponed, and working life for many has reached a total standstill. The only thing that persists is death—already 53,000 times worldwide—yet even for victims, the chairs in the funeral halls remain disturbingly empty. It seems inevitable that 2020 will be remembered as the year when nothing went ahead.

Maintaining collective courage

In this spring-lit darkness, amidst piles of hoarded toilet paper, a glimmer of hope remains. Where individualism prevailed in the pre-Covid era, a vibrant solidarity is now unfolding. As if by design, and just in time—for bending unyielding steel requires not only courage but immense strength. An effort we can only sustain together. Let us look to the broad shoulders of those in healthcare, education, emergency services, and public transport. For now, we stand at a distance of one and a half metres, but in the near future, hopefully, we shall stand back to back and side by side once more.