The reason it is called “COVID-19” is that the 19 refers to the year in which is was discovered and that would be 2019. I believe it was in November. The Chinese discovered it. And everyone wants to lay blame of some sort at their feet but the Chinese scientists were at that time grappling with what they had discovered. People need to remember that just because science discovers something does not mean they immediately and fully understand exactly what they have discovered. To the contrary, most scientific discovered take decades to fully explain and sometime longer, much longer.

No one knew this would become the pandemic is has. No one knew and most still grapple with what the immediate and long term effects of this disease are and will be. The best immunologists and epidemiologists are working very hard to get the arms around this virus but to get it right they need time. It is almost a shame that Dr. Fauci informed us that it would take at least 18 months to get a vaccine for this disease. He has told us that such would be the case if everything went right and we got it on the first try. He has also said that it is unlikely those things will happen. But no one seems to be hearing what he is saying. I am not in the medical field but I remember from the one microbiology course I took in college that the professor told how a virus is the most difficult of all maladies to remedy because of the way it exists.

Let’s take AIDS as an example of the above difficulties. We first new of AIDS is the early 1980s. It is a virus. Problematic to it is that it mutates hence the finest minds have yet to create a vaccine 40 years later! What does this have to do with COVID-19? Two things, first, COVID-19 is a virus that the Chinese believe has already mutated as they are having new outbreaks of this disease. Second, the best way to prevent the spread is through personal protection. My personal experience in traveling from Boston to Montana, Wyoming and Idaho is that people in these states are not taking this virus seriously and are not wearing masks. That will change.

I fear we will suffer with this disease for the next 2 years which will cause states to close down again, hospitals to become overwhelmed and more people dying. This may well be one of our new realities for some time to come. I hope I am wrong.

COVID-19 has already forever changed the way businesses will run. Those business who had never done work from home have been forced into it and have discovered it to be a very effective way to do business. Businesses have been forced to change the way they do business or die. And I read this morning where it is expected that 1/4 of all small business will not reopen. I expect business schools will be changing their curriculum to accommodate the new business models that will inevitably come out of this pandemic.

Additionally, the way we look at response to health crises has already changed and will change more. We simply were not prepared for this pandemic in large part because our belief systems had not allowed for such an occurrence.

We have a new phrase in our language, “social distancing.” Will this be temporary or long-lasting, possibly a new standard?

Amid the Pandemic and new ways of doing business came the policeman who murdered a black man by asphyxiation. First it forced police forces around the country to reconsider apprehension techniques. Then another black man was killed just because three white men thought he was a wanted man when in truth he was just out for a jog, something he had done regularly for a long time and finally there was the policeman who shot and killed a black man in the back because he was resisting arrest.

I knew America was still ways to racist for my liking, but to the extent it has suddenly reared its ugly head was surprising. These events caused demonstrations against racism across America. When it was discovered in the black community that some of them were taking advantage of the situation to cause property damage and looting, black leaders took it upon themselves to call out these thugs and remind both them and America that the protests are to be peaceful. In a number of demonstrations it was police mishandling of the protests that cause them to turn violent. But maybe, just maybe, out this will come a more widespread intolerance for all forms of racism. We can only hope.