By Peter Pavarini
Will Things Ever Be Normal Again? Before anyone knows when the coronavirus crisis will end, there is already a flood of articles[i] asking whether things will ever return to “normal” – or at least what people thought was normal just a few weeks ago. The bombing of Pearl Harbor, the 9-11 attacks and the financial crisis of 2008 appear to be the most common analogies writers are using to describe the likely impact of this pandemic on American society. A few, with a longer view of history, think the Spanish Flu Epidemic of 1918-1919 might be a better precedent to study[ii] since it’s harder to blame that tragedy on human behavior.
In some way, every calamity is transformative. However, given what we know know, the most important effects of the COVID-19 pandemic will be more fundamental than what we experienced in the aftermath of those earlier calamities.
The Children’s Blizzard of 1888. The historical event that came to mind when I first learned of the coronavirus outbreak was the somewhat obscure Children’s Blizzard of 1888. On what began as an unseasonably warm January day in the northern Great Plains, 235 people, almost all schoolchildren, literally froze to death when teachers – unprepared for a change in weather – elected not to shelter in place, but instead sent their pupils home in the face of drastically falling temperatures, driving snow and 60 mph winds. Although the death toll associated with that tragedy was not nearly as great as other historic weather events such as the Galveston Hurricane of 1900 (in which approximately 8,000 died), the Children’s Blizzard permanently scarred the psyche of American parents and teachers. Whenever I see schools close nowadays if any measurable amount of winter precipitation is forecast, I think the American educational system is still unconsciously mourning the loss of those young lives 132 years ago.
Lessons from History. Similarly, the COVID-19 outbreak is teaching us lessons that are likely to be more profound and long-lasting than any political or economic fallout from this public health debacle. The citizens of the country didn’t need another crisis in order for them to doubt whether the trillions we spend annually on government (at all levels) really delivers what we’ve been promised. If you were alive during the 1976 swine flu vaccine fiasco, particularly if you were one of the 45 million citizens who were unnecessarily vaccinated against an epidemic that failed to materialize, you’d know how hard it is for government to get these problems right.
This is not to say that nothing good ever comes from a national crisis or that government doesn’t have a proper role to play in dealing with a public health threat. Even though up to 750,000 lives were lost during the American Civil War, many of from disease, that conflict set the stage for modern medicine, including safer surgical techniques, improved anesthesia, the first real hospitals and organized nursing staffs. The Civil War also gave rise to the earliest social welfare programs in the U.S., namely benefits for the widows and orphans of the soldiers who died.
Applying What We’ve Learned. Surely, some the benefits of this “wake-up call”, as some have dubbed it, are – in no particular order – the growth of on-line learning, the benefits of home-schooling, finding ways to do almost everything remotely, global reconsideration of open borders, reversal of urban density trends, placing higher importance on personal hygiene, personal space and self-sufficiency, renewed interest in drive-in movies, the demise of all-you-can-eat buffet restaurants, bringing your own towels, sheets and TV remotes to hotels, and, of course, continued growth of e-commerce in every form.
When personal habits change as rapidly as might be anticipated because of this pandemic, we could see the start of a cultural revolution of sorts. Those who, prior to the crisis, employed a “just-in-time” approach for their daily needs, such as toilet paper, will now be open to alternatives. Hopefully, such advance planning will spill over into other consumer behavior, such as building up “rainy day” funds and other examples of the self-sufficiency that had been followed by past generations. If there is a silver lining to this cloud, the “new normal” will include a rejection of behaviors that don’t make fighting any pandemic easy – such as living on the streets of major metropolitan areas. We can only hope that, if mandatory social distancing has taught us anything, it should now be socially acceptable to demand that anyone exhibiting signs of a contagious illness be excused (i.e., removed) from a public space presently be used by others.
Restoring the Best of America’s Character. Most importantly, we should hope to recover some of the decorum (I know, that’s not a popular word anymore) that has been lost over the past couple of decades. America’s obsession with being non-judgmental about almost everything is partly to blame for some of the incivility we’ve seen in recent days. It’s hard to stand-up to someone violating a stay-at-home order in your city when you just gave your college-aged son or daughter permission (and money) to go to Florida for spring break even though you knew the risk that presented to themselves and others. Most Americans remain remarkably flexible. We learn and adapt to challenges very quickly. A country that can develop a 5-minute COVID-19 test in less than two weeks then flood the market with millions of test kits can surely figure out how to make our society safer and healthier without substituting government mandates for personal responsibility.
[i] E.g., Gaby Hinsliff, “The Coronavirus Crisis will pass, but life may never be ‘normal’ again’, The Guardian, March 13, 2020; “Coronavirus Will Change the World Permanently. Here’s How.”, Politico, March 19, 2020; Enda Curran, “Coronavirus Will Change How We Shop, Travel and Work for Years”, Bloomberg, March 13, 2020.
[ii] Peter Schelden, “What 1918 Spanish Fly Death Toll Tells Us About COVID-19 Coronavirus Pandemic”, MedicineNet Health News, March 12, 2020.
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