These few months have been crazy, with the COVID-19 pandemic that has spread around the world. I think that the hardest part is the unknown. The fear of being a vector or catching it, if you’re in the group of people that are still needing to go to work. The fear of not knowing how long this is going to last for. The fear of not knowing when life will return to normal, and not knowing if you have enough toilet paper or not. This is not going to be a post on what to do, how to do it, or what not to do. This isn’t going to just be a reiteration of the stats, death rates or infection numbers. It’s not a post that’s going to be touting that you are all overreacting and it’s just the flu (because it’s not). There’s enough of that floating around on the interwebs and in the media at this point.

Just hold on.

Stop.

Close your eyes.

Take a deep breath.

Try a few more now, in through your nose, out through your mouth.

Open your eyes.

Feel better? 

Can you think clearly again?

Good.

Let’s talk about something different, and look at this whole picture with a different mindset. This is a situation that most health officials have known would happen, and this may be a trial run of a more deadly, more contagious disease (zombies!!). Let’s hope that we can all learn from this situation, both individuals, institutions, and our governments alike. Why don’t we use this time to come together to innovate, create, and recognize the holes in our system?

For instance, when I first learned of telehealth PT, or even telemedicine in general, most companies did not feel the need to invest in this service, citing that most people would not want to use it (but really, its just because insurances didn’t reimburse for telemedicine services). But now, with clinics closing and people cancelling appointments to those clinics that are still open, there’s a sudden surge for telemedicine services. And I think that’s great. As popularity of telemedicine and telePT grows, it will become more and more common place, and suddenly, insurances are changing their policies to reimburse for these services as well. In the long run, there will be so many people that will benefit from this period of innovation.

Socially, I’ve never seen such a massive display of teamwork of groups, nay, countries of strangers working together for the greater good. Sure, you’ll always have that jerk who doesn’t help, just like that guy in high school who coasted through the senior project without doing anything and the group got an A (I don’t hold grudges, Henry). But it’s okay. Just seeing the group humanitarian effort to stop this spread is unbelievably heartwarming.

The situation is also highlighting the backbone of our society, but also the most vulnerable. The single parents who work 2-3 jobs just to make ends meet; the recent philosophy grad working gigs to get by, the people who work in childcare, in grocery stores, and the service industry. Thank you all for making our lives easier on a regular basis. However, these are the people who are also most at risk of being financially crippled if they are told to stay home for 2 weeks….or indefinitely. I don’t know what the solution is to even help, or even to start to resolve this issue. However, the pandemic has been eye opening for all of us, and has at least opened dialogue for future policy changes (hopefully).

I want to hold onto these silver linings, new opportunities, and ideas for change. My biggest fear in all of this is that if we continue to focus on the grim and the dreary, we will forget about the lessons we’ve learned during this time, both the good and the bad. I hope that this experience for the world truly helps us change our future for the better.

Be strong, folks. And as always, even if you just want someone to talk to as you’re doing your due diligence with social isolation, sign up or just message me.