COVID-19

When we are isolated with our family, problems that are sometimes easy to ignore become more acute, and the need to receive and offer forgiveness to those around us becomes increasingly evident.

We do not know what 2020 would have looked like without a pandemic, but we already know that some losses could have been prevented. And, if the future lies in the spectrum of pandemics, as the WHO warns, we should learn all the lessons that can be learned from this long journey.

Our planet may be fittingly compared to the 1994 film, Speed: A bomb is planted on a bus and rigged to explode when the bus slows to less than 80 kilometres per hour. The bus barrels through Los Angeles, hitting obstacles and endangering the lives of passengers and pedestrians until a solution is found.

As a teenager, I remember pasting a quote from Blaise Pascal on the wall of my room. It was a thought I resonated with, not without some arrogance: "All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone."

What feeds our fear in times of crisis, such as this pandemic we are in? How can we avoid letting fear paralyze our search for information and our ability to make the right decisions?

It will soon be two years since the virus known as COVID-19 started to roam around the world. The sad toll of this disease—over 5 million victims worldwide—is still incomplete, because we are far from seeing an end to the pandemic. It has been the largest public health crisis in the last century.

Let’s not go back to the abnormality of before! This is one of the messages which the French hung from their balconies on May 1, when the activities that would usually happen on this national public holiday could not take place. What can we change and what is worth changing after COVID-19?

The great challenge facing the world’s leaders right now is identifying an optimal response to a disease bearing several characteristics that make it difficult to combat.

I open the window and breathe in the air, trying to guess the weather. Floating around, mixed, are scents and miasms alike; it's hard to decipher these intricate clues.

In the spring of 1936, the members of the Lykov family made a decision that would change their lives forever: they disappeared into the Siberian taiga, completely isolating themselves from the world for the next 40 years.

11pm and I am worried my patient will not make it till tomorrow morning, says Dr Glenn Wakam. Twelve hours after intubation, the COVID-19 patient's condition deteriorates dramatically, and Wakam knows that an even more difficult intervention follows: to explain to the patient's wife, who begs to be allowed to say goodbye, that the hospital does not allow her this sad privilege.

The epidemic of false information in this worldwide pandemic is even more infectious than the virus itself. Fortunately, there is a vaccine for this epidemic of fake news: quality information and information filters. However, not everyone has been vaccinated. Here is an immunization effort.

1. I remember that day, 9/11. It was chaos. Violence, shortage of food. For several days, it was uncertain if there would be more...

There have now been over 12 million cases of COVID-19 infection globally, and half a million deaths. Researchers are constantly looking for new and better information to reduce the uncertainty around the virus.

Courage is not the opposite of fear, nor of caution. True courage is what you do right in the midst of fear.