English 9 Guest Series: What would the ideal future look like after coronavirus?

By Colin Turner ‘23, Stella Alvarez ‘23, and Noah Macauley ‘23

What will the future look like from here on out? Artwork by Stella Alvarez ‘23.

Our lives have been put on pause recently. That is because we are in the middle of a global pandemic. We haven’t seen something that has been this widespread since the flu outbreak in the 1960s. Our country, in particular, has been ill prepared, which is in some part the fault of our puerile government administration, but it is also partially the fault of the shortsightedness and selfishness of the people. We are so focused on ourselves, we have forgotten what we need to do in order to make sure nothing like this happens again for a long time. We have a very large number of our country’s population who do not believe that this is a threat. We need to show and prove to the populous that with our current course for the future, we will be hurt from this for much longer than if we take simple and easy precautions rather than listen to the lies from the ignoramuses in federal office. A vision for the future is essential to convince people.

So what is a vision for the future, and why is it important? A vision for the future is what something would look like after a period of time and is predominantly used to talk about what would happen if some changes were made. The reason that it is so important, is that when given the opportunity to do something that will change the future, people want to know what the effect that their decision will have, which is why it is so imperative to have fact- based, well-reasoned, and imaginative visions because they influence every part of our decision making and our society. Huge visions that people have had, have forever affected history, for good or evil. They have ranged from Adolf Eichmann, who was considered the architect of the Holocaust, to Ruth Graves Wakefield, who just wanted to make a tasty snack, to Teddy Rosevelt, who envisioned and created the national park preserves. Not every person with a vision is famous, but their legacies are those visions. These people changed reality in their times and today. Our future is impacted by what we do today, so it is crucial that we think about what we need to do today to help us tomorrow.

After coronavirus, it is absolutely imperative that we take the lessons learned from this pandemic and apply them everywhere we can. This would look like having better guidelines for public health, having more systems, organizations, and programs to fight pandemics, and more. A way we could achieve this is creating a new section of government, led by an experienced health official like Dr. Fauci. More than public health, other visions of the future could be one where we could try to understand everyone else and have empathy for them - not having this is a sure way to re-create the stay-at-home protests we see so often today. 

We can lead this new movement by all doing our part: washing hands, practicing social distancing, and more. Politicians should help us with this, not to say that they will, but they should. It’s in both of our interests to keep the voter base, well, alive. They could also help by pushing policies that would increase our defenses against pandemics and keep the general public safe and healthy. In my experience, mandatory face masks in public places would be beneficial for more than a few reasons. For one, it would help render the stigma around masks obsolete by making everyone wear a mask. When I hung out with friends recently, one of the people near us said, “Are you really wearing a face mask?” Why yes, I am wearing a face mask in the midst of a pandemic to help you stay healthy, thank you very much. It would also reduce the spread of diseases like COVID-19 and others, like the flu (especially in the flu season).

So in conclusion, visions for the future define the future, and it is crucial that we have them so we can have goals to reach. Though they are not always well-purposed, they are nevertheless imperative so that we can progress as society. Our visions have changed our lives forever, so we can’t stop sharing them now that we are quarantined to ourselves. We need ideas and thoughts on how we can make a pandemic like this not happen for a while.