Stuart Lowman’s Inbox: Life post-Covid must move forward rather than go back to what was

In an open letter to South Africans, PSG CEO Piet Mouton called on everyone to get vaccinated so life can get back to normal. Community member David Lipschitz goes one step further, saying we need to learn the 'big' lessons of Covid and move forward, rather than go back to what was:

I really like what you wrote this morning even including a "fuck off". This is as real as it gets and is not filtered news.

Mr Mouton writes: "I have been vaccinated. I want to continue with life as normal as possible."

And here is the nub. We cannot go back to working in offices, life in conference centres and meeting rooms, life in aircraft and airports and railway stations, life in queues and traffic, life in pollution filled environments.

Covid has come to teach humanity to work from home offices, to get out of traffic, to have remote conferences, to get out of conference buildings, to get out of school buildings (not out of school fields or schools), to get back to some sort of nature, and to return to a life before humanity was forced into factories, of which the modern versions are buildings like Discovery has with thousands of people working in big buildings.

Not so long ago, if you met 100 people in a year, that was a lot. Nowadays if you are in the London underground, you are stuffed in a railway car or a platform with thousands of people. No wonder humans and our planet are sick.

A return to "life as normal as possible" increases our pollution, increases our life in traffic, increases our stress, increases our overall time in hospitals, increases our dependence on oil and central power stations, increases our dependence on the elite. And it is this that the dogmatic, orthodox, centrist, establishment is fighting as it thrashes like the huge fossilised dinosaur that it is, as it crashes and passes out of existence because the masses can again work "remotely", work at home, creating their own electrical, water, waste, food, and other systems, locally, environmentally friendly, and without the possibility of slavery, wage slavery or otherwise. Note that the definition of remotely has changed. 500 years ago the home was local and remote was a factory or building. Today remote means working at home. How we have screwed up our minds!

We need to learn the lessons of Covid, the big lessons, not the myopic lessons that companies like Discovery and PSG believe in. If we don't learn these fundamental environmental lessons, we will have worsening plagues that medicine will not be able to "fix". Let's learn from Covid. Let's learn the environmental message, for our planet's health and for our internal environments, and let's get on with a new normal. The time is now for the apathetic masses to claim their decentralised rights and get out of the modern factories of slavery and work from home (remote) offices, with all the benefits it brings. Yes, I agree, that there are teething problems, as husband and wife and children learn how to live together! But we are better for it. And if I get interrupted during a meeting by my dog barking, then how is this different from being interrupted in a meeting by a colleague who needs my urgent attention? (Note that I'm not comparing dogs and colleagues).

We are in a new normal. Getting an injection and trying to return to an old normal of traffic and pollution is not where I want to be.

Bring on the lesson of Covid and let's move forward as human beings into the Age of Aquarius bringing beauty and life back into our souls.

Keeping to the theme of ending lockdown, Denver Furmage argues that the government must set a date, an equivalent to the UK's 'Freedom Day'.

I haven't researched all the data so I am speaking from a position of some ignorance. However one must think that South Africa should now be looking towards setting a target date for its equivalent of the UK's "Freedom Day" where the State of Disaster and all accompanying lockdown restrictions are completely lifted.

There are sufficient vaccine doses in South Africa for everyone who qualifies. There is also clearly a lot of "vaccine hesitancy" which is probably a major contributor to the low numbers of daily jabs. I would propose that the Government sets a date of say 31 December 2021 to open everything up and they should announce this by end-September.

We can't remain under the current circumstances indefinitely and having a target date provides much needed direction. It may even persuade those that are hesitant to go ahead and take the vaccine. The 31 December 2021 affords 3 months from end-September which should be more than enough notice for the hesitant and those that still wish to take the vaccine. Those that don't want to, bear the risk, which they currently are anyway.

Once South Africa lifts all restrictions then COVID can be dealt with like the seasonal flu.

Would love to know what other views on this would be. For and against.

And in the piece below community member Grateful Ronel showed her support for yesterday's contribution from An Appreciative Subscriber:

I LOVE LOVE LOVE the letter from Appreciative Subscriber.

I too have medical weaknesses that should mean avoiding infection at all cost AND a young daughter who deserves to happily connect and thrive. We live healthy lives to support good immune function.

I decided early on that I'd gladly suffer if it meant she could continue to study, attend lectures, walk dogs at the shelter, plant with others in the community garden. As it happened, she did get COVID, not from ignoring sensible measures, but apparently from a barista that continued to work despite being sick, as his extended family relied on his income, bless his soul. I inevitably got it too in our small home – and we both fought it off (in isolation, of course, as we would with any infectious illness) and now have natural antibodies. We suspect we've been exposed to a subsequent variant as we got slightly ill again, with similar symptoms some months later, and quickly overcame that too.

My common sense tells me this is nature's way.

Yes, I know it could have turned out differently, and I am NOT minimising the pain and loss suffered by some. My point is that dying is an inherent risk of living. Our CHOICE of connecting, with care, just feels more in rhythm with life, more loving, less fearful. Like the barista, we mean no one harm even as we must have unknowingly infected scores of people over our life-times with a variety of cold viruses, ringworm, chicken pox, whatever, as they have infected us. We aren't murderous "spreaders".

My parents in their mid-80's have been isolated in their retirement quarters for pretty much all of pandemic and are visibly fading away from lack of connection (video calling cannot replace joyful connection). They both have expressed that they'd gladly shuffle off the mortal coil if it was the price for truly connecting in person with kids, grandchildren and great grandchildren – after all, their legacy IS their reason for living these days.

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