Our chance to stand up!
For us millennials, the last 5–10 years have opened our eyes to incredibly complex problems faced by humankind. From climate change, racial equality to women empowerment — we recognize that we have a long way to go and even though small steps can be taken on an individual level, bringing about significant change is not straight-forward or quick to achieve.
With all the news around COVID-19, the last month or so has provided us an opportunity to learn about viruses, how they originate, vaccinations, herd immunity as well as (lack of) epidemic readiness across the world. One significant way that this problem is different is how easily we can make an impact on the crisis.
In ANY of the complex problems faced by humankind today, individual actions cannot cause such a significant difference in the number of lives saved. So no matter where you live, which political party you support, how well or poorly your government is preparing or reacting to this crisis, YOU can take some simple steps to keep them and other people.
There are 2 easy ways in the short term to we all can contribute to resolving this crisis:
Stay home: There has probably never been a time in history when you can make a significant difference by simply staying in your cozy house and being lazy. And NO — this does not mean you can go to meet friends at their house or invite them over and that is even when all of you feel fine. Remember, at one point reports estimated that nearly 80% of South Korea’s patients were tracked back to Patient 31. Even if those claims are a little exaggerated, it’s worth keeping in mind that a person with regular flu (on average) infects 1.4 persons, meaning after 10 such iterations roughly 29 people are infected. In the case of COVID-19, 1 infected person spreads it to 3 people which results in over 59,000 cases after 10 iterations.
Help/Donate: There are a lot of people around the world whose livelihood has been adversely impacted. From healthcare workers, restaurant workers, people in the aviation and tourism industry as well as taxi and delivery drivers. If possible, please donate to their causes — buy pizza for the local hospital, give money to buy masks or other protective equipment or simply tip a little extra to your food delivery guy. If you aren’t financially that comfortable, maybe just step up and pick up groceries for the elderly or the more vulnerable in your community. There are numerous people who need help, don’t hesitate to ask people.
People tend to forget the lessons or knowledge when things settle down. But this is a good time to talk about some long term actions that we all need to take:
Get vaccinated: This is absolutely crucial. Scientists have time again talked about the importance of vaccination and many diseases in history have been eradicated because people got vaccinated. If some people are not protected, then viruses can infect them and eventually evolve to impact even those who are vaccinated. Don’t believe in non-scientific claims of viruses causing reactions or hurting children and advocate for everyone to get vaccinated.
Advocate for better health care: Considering how connected the world is today, it is very hard to stop the spread of contagious disease and many experts have been talking about the need to plan better for a pandemic (in fact, Bill Gates even talked about this in 2018). The only way to minimize the damage is by ensuring good health care for all. After all, COVID-19 has shown us how people in South Korea, Italy, Iran as well as the USA can be impacted by what happens in China. While this is a lot harder to achieve, it is important to push for better health care facilities and hygiene practices in your community and country. No matter what place you call home, push your elected officials to work towards better health care — not just for you, but for all.