According to Billgates, ‘The end will come’: Bill Gates is still hopeful the world will be ‘back to normal’ by end of 2022.
Is it even possible to go “back to normal”? This is the question that arose for me after reading several articles online. For me, it is making me nervous because normal can appear hazy and ambiguous, especially because different countries are still at different stages of the pandemic, making even vaccinated people wary.
When I asked some working groups if they were anxious about the transition back to normalcy, nearly most of my respondents said yes.
They are concerned about the difficulty of readjusting to social life. They’re worried about going back to commutes and office employment, which have increased their stress and reduced their quality of life.
They’re also concerned about returning to a new normal that looks eerily similar to the old one, whose weaknesses the epidemic exposed.
Amera, an outpatient transportation services agency, sees it differently. “Back to normal” refers to a confident restart, re-opening, and recovery. Elena Rivers, Amera’s CEO, recently partnered with Toyota Center and the Houston Rockets, informing their healthcare provider partners of surgical centers nationwide of their willingness to assist.
The pandemic in our heads differs greatly from the pandemic as measured by cases, hospitalizations, and deaths. Because it exists in both our minds and the physical world, the pandemic is partly about us–how we each feel.
