The State of the World
It’s been quite a while since I last posted something on Nick of Time. This was my last post and I had jumped into 2019 thinking I’d spend a lot more time writing and sharing and documenting. That obviously didn’t happen, but I guess there’s no better time to get back into it than during a global pandemic, am I right?
As all of us have experienced, the state of the world has completely changed over just a few short weeks. Where I am in NYC, streets are mostly empty, businesses have closed, and restaurants have mostly shut their doors to everything except take-out food and – in some cases – cocktails because there are no rules in COVID-19 society? There is a statewide mandate for non-essential workers to work from home, which has resulted in hundreds of thousands in losing their jobs across the state. Hospitals are also working in overdrive to combat and attempt to control the rapid spread of the virus. Despite Governor Cuomo’s swift efforts to institute mass quarantine recommendations for the entire state, the density of NYC has led to over 55k confirmed cases at the time of writing. We are, however, starting to see these number of daily cases decrease, which seems to suggest that the strict quarantine measures are starting to work in NY.
Hospitals are running low on critical PPE (personal protective equipment) for their providers, beds are being filled, lifesaving ventilators are in limited supply, and FEMA – in partnership with the Army Corps of Engineers & the NY National Guard – has erected a temporary hospital at The Javits Center in Midtown East.NYC is the center of the outbreak in the US, but cities and governments around the world are struggling in similar ways. Italy, in particular, is seeing a shock to their healthcare system so unprecedented that the utilitarian trolley problem is playing out in real-life for healthcare providers across the country – the same thing has started to play out in NYC. I remember having in-depth conversations about this problem in my Freshman Year Moral Theory class at Syracuse, but it was only that – a theory. The fact that this is actually playing out in the real world is an unimaginable burden being placed on doctors making lifesaving decisions every minute of the day.
While the healthcare system has been getting stretched to its limits and unemployment in the US is pushing upwards of 10%, the global economy has come to a halt and markets have dropped in record numbers. All Trump-era stock market gains were wiped out in the last few weeks as airline, hospitality, and travel industries came to a halt. Vacations, weddings, and business travel are getting canceled left-and-right while everyone can do nothing but practice social distancing to keep their friends, family, and society safe from this virus.
Despite all of this craziness, there is still some good that has come out of this event that has drastically shaped all of our lives. Global pollution levels have dropped significantly (the data show that this is temporary and not sustainable once we get back to a normally functioning society, but temporarily good nonetheless), people all over the country are banding together to stitch together masks and scrub caps for healthcare workers, and cities around the world (NYC included) come to their balconies and windows to cheer/bang pots and pans/clap/etc. every night to salute the essential workers out there who are ensuring our essential societal needs are met. The roar of the nightly 7pm cheering in NYC is truly goose-bump inducing and is one of the things that keeps me smiling through all of this.
We’ve also found new ways to interact (virtually) with our friends, family, and co-workers that I believe will become a lot more prevalent even after all of this settles down. Friday night Zoom happy hours are the new-normal and team meetings at work have moved from sitting around the roundtable to sitting wherever you have space in your apartment/home/backyard/balcony. Many of us have found more time to enjoy the company of loved ones with whom we live and tried new activities that we might not have spent a lot of time doing before this (1000 piece puzzles seem to be falling into that category a lot nowadays, but still aren’t one of my favorite activities 😬).I, personally, have spent a lot more time reading and have already knocked out a couple of books since being on quarantine. My favorite so far has been Indistractable by Nir Eyal, which has been especially helpful in a time where it’s so easy to get distracted while working from home. I also plan to write a bit more, but we’ll see where that goes.
Reach out to your loved ones, lean on each other, and show compassion during this crazy time. This too shall pass and we’ll all come out on the other side as better people as a result of going through this. Things are tough now, but WILL get better.Stay safe, healthy, and positive, friends. We’ll talk soon!
Be well,
Nick
