On March 11, 2019 — when in-person events started cancelling and COVID-19 became real for me — I didn’t think it would still be around over a year later. I don’t know exactly how long I thought it would last, but didn’t expect it to be ongoing over 6-months, for sure.
In just over a year, we’ve gone from live events with 20k in attendance commanding a pretty healthy speaking honorarium — to virtual events where 85% of people in business think they can be a virtual presenter. The fee is now 1/3 or less than it was pre-pandemic for the same content delivery. My life… just like the lives of so very many others… doesn’t look the same anymore.
We studied the Spanish Flu in high school, but that’s been a minute ago for me. I remembered it was around a bit more than a year and took a whole lot of lives… so with the advances in heath care, I figured COVID would be snuffed out in a shorter time.
- History.com says the Spanish flu ended when those infected either died or were immune, and death estimates are near 100 million — 3% of the world.
- Johns Hopkins says deaths from COVID are nearing 3 million as of today.
I don’t know how to interpret that data exactly other than one number is a lot bigger than the other and dead is dead. I do know that we all want an end to the pandemic, and I also know that I don’t want to be one of those people who die to help get rid of it. Did flattening the curve buy time for a vaccine but also keep the virus around longer?
No matter… fewer deaths is still good because again, dead is dead. However, when I look at the COVID-19 maps of infections and rates of spread — counties and states turning back orange or red — it makes me sad. It causes me to wonder…
Will this EVER end!?!
TIL (Today I Learned): Notre Dame is the first Indiana college to require all students to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 by the fall 2021 semester.