This week marks a year that mobility restrictions began in and between countries around the world in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic, which was beginning to wreak havoc on our societies. Stores and restaurants were closed, school activities were suspended and flights around the world were canceled, starting just this week a year ago (though not all at the same time everywhere).
The first and most important piece of information is that more than 2.6 million people have died as a result of Covid-19, an almost unimaginable number. The United States remains at the top of the mortality list, with more than half a million deaths, but Brazil and Mexico follow in positions two and three.
Although those are gigantic numbers, the most important cases for each of us are those that have touched us firsthand, family and friends and colleagues who have died in recent months due to the coronavirus; loved ones who would be with us if it weren’t for this evil that went around the world. And many more have suffered serious cases of Covid-19 and experienced the terror of not knowing if they would survive and the consequences that the virus often leaves behind.
But there has been other damage. The world economy fell more than 4 percent in 2020 and the Mexican economy more than 9 percent. This created a massive blow, especially to those who had the least. They are lost jobs and income, bankrupt businesses, liquidated dreams. They are blows from which you cannot always easily recover, not even when the economy starts rolling again.
And this year has also been especially hard for school and university children and young people, who have had to study from home, and for parents who have to take the place of teachers to teach their children, especially the little ones. . Some of the lags from this school year will hamper the learning process next year. And for teens and tweens, the period without socializing has been especially difficult. And we have all suffered the absence of our family and friends whom we have not been able to visit.
With all these losses – and they are many and much more personal than can be quantified – there have also been some achievements. We have survived this year, however it may be, and shown that we have the ability to adapt and move on, even in the midst of adversity.
When we have not been able to see friends and family who are further away, we have spent more time with those close to us and those at home. With all the difficulties and sufferings this year, I am grateful for the time with my children that I might not have seen so much if I was in my normal rhythm of movement between home and work.
And the economy hasn’t fully collapsed, and now in 2021 it shows signs of reviving. Much depends on how quickly the vaccines arrive, to be able to return the functioning of the economy to normal, but everything indicates that we will come out of this hole at some point this year.
And it must be recognized that rapid action by governments and people’s commitment to wearing masks in public and adjusting their movements saved millions of lives. And vaccines were invented and produced in record time to tackle Covid-19, a joint effort of scientists, the private sector, and governments.
This year has been historic in every way — in loss and suffering, in survival, and in the ability to adapt and invent solutions. We will remember forever this period, how we lived, what we lost, what we gained, how we changed.
There is still a stretch left to get out of this period and return to normality, but at this moment, which is the year that we understood the seriousness of what had come to us, it is a good time to take stock of these transformations, to cry , to hug each other, to remember and, in the end, to set our sights towards the future.
Twitter: @seleeandrew
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