All around the world, countries are beginning to ease out of Lockdown. Please do five things as you and your family re-engage the world:
1. Remain cautious and protect yourself and others from virus transmission. This is actually the most dangerous phase of our engagement with the virus, with a massive second wave possible if we don’t take transmission, prevention, contact tracing, and quarantine seriously. Wear a face mask in public, sanitise regularly, maintain physical distancing, limit your geographic footprint and the number of people you come into contact with.
2. Support local small businesses where possible. These small businesses are the heartbeat of the economy, and need your support.
3. Be patient and gracious. Companies that get customer service right will impress and delight you. Many will struggle for a while to get their systems right - be patient and gracious.
4. Be loving and kind. Other people will engage with this next phase of Covid response differently to you. To those who are reckless and cavalier, be loving and kind in your requests for them to be more cautious - remember that their bravado is masking fear. To those who might be too afraid to venture out and re-engage with the world, be loving and kind in your encouragement and support - remember that we don’t know other people’s worlds and issues.
5. Stop talking about “going back to normal”. There’s no normal to go back to: we will be living WITH Covid for a long time. This next phase of disruption will last at least 18 months - even with more easing of lockdown regulations, the need to be careful of Covid will remain. And, let’s use this Covid disruption to reset some of the world we live in - part of the normal we had is the reason why Covid disruption is so bad now. Broken health care systems, extreme wealth inequality, what we eat and how we live are all part of the problem. Let’s fix some of those problems, rather than trying to go back to them.
Stay safe, stay sane and enjoy the next phase of Covid response.
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