Flying around on the internet are a lot of differing opinions on the pandemic. Everything from “the Earth is angry” to “cellphone towers are radiating us to death.” It’s almost impossible to know who’s perspective is the most reliable.

Almost impossible…

As luck would have it, you’ve stumbled onto my blog which is consistently a source of sound reason and wisdom. Reading this article will put you in the small, enviable group of humans with a worthwhile point of view.

You should sit down before you read this paragraph. The pandemic was not caused by the COVID-19 virus. The virus has been unfairly blamed. The real reason for the pandemic is faulty thinking. We are suffering because we believe several things that aren’t true.

GERMS ALWAYS KILL PEOPLE

The COVID-19 pandemic started happening long before the COVID-19 virus existed. We’ve spent decades prepping ourselves for panic. Old timers (like me) remember when children were allowed to play outside surrounded by dirt and germs. We had something called the “five second rule” which allowed you to eat food dropped on the floor if you picked it up quickly. We washed our hands before we ate but we didn’t ‘sanitize’ them every couple of minutes.

Somewhere along the line we were told that 99.9% of germs can be eliminated from our lives. We were told we MUST eliminate those germs or our children will get sick and die. So parents who truly loved their kids wiped everything (EVERYTHING!!!!) with bleach. Concerned parents shouted at their toddlers, “Don’t touch that! It’s dirty!” Those toddlers grew up believing that germs kill kids. They passed that belief to their kids.

Now we have an entire generation of adults (with children) who believe that leaving a restroom without washing your hands is equivalent to firing a gun into a crowd. Leaving the house without a mask is committing murder.

WE CAN CONTROL NATURE

We think we can end sickness. If everyone would just vaccinate their kids, we could wipe out disease. The pro-vaccination crowd is quite passionate and they ask a fair question, “Don’t you want your kids to be healthy?”

Of course I want healthy kids. But viruses are just ONE of zillions of things that work against the well-being of my loved ones. There is no inoculation against lightning strikes, tornadoes, hypothermia, drowning, cancer, drug addiction, alcoholism, obesity…or ignorance.

As it turns out, there’s no inoculation against COVID-19 either. And when the vaccine finally arrives, guess what? Nature will introduce another virus that we’ve never seen before. All our potions, injections, pills, and elixirs won’t keep the kids healthy.

We Think It’s Somebody’s Fault

The final bit of faulty thinking that made this pandemic possible is our need to blame somebody for every tragedy. We don’t believe in accidents anymore. Every crisis is the direct result of some person’s negligence or malice. We believe the government has the power to keep us safe and it is wicked when they refuse to do so.

The mayor of New York city blamed 26,000 hypothetical deaths on ‘somebody’ responsible for providing ventilators. We blame church leaders for holding services. We blame businesses for wanting to remain open. We blame our neighbors for throwing parties.

Fear makes us stupid. It is irrational to place blame on any individual while holding ourselves individually blameless. If there is one person at fault, how do you know it’s not you?

…in conclusion…

The pandemic was inevitable. It could not have been avoided. There wasn’t enough information at the start to keep panic from running amok. Our government didn’t know whether or not the virus posed a legitimate threat. They “erred on the side of caution” in case COVID-19 turned out to be the killer it was predicted to be.

That was our fault.

Government officials knew that we would blame them for everything. We would pin every death on our leaders. Their extreme response enabled them to say, “I did everything possible to save lives.” Now they can point fingers at each other.

How do we move forward? We don’t.

We are not at a crossroads. We are at a ‘T’. Our trajectory is changed and we can’t pick up where we left off. Things will be different forever.

But don’t despair. Some things never change. I’m confident that we won’t learn anything from this. When the quarantine is over, we’ll quickly return to the familiar and comfortable mindset that brought about the crisis in the first place.