And yet being told it’s COVID can be quite a surprise, especially when it’s COVID for the second time.
Now it all makes sense. All the symptoms, and all the signs.
As we move into year three of COVID around the world with different countries facing different levels of openness and closure, it is so easy for us all to start to become quite lazy about the situation.
“It’s like the flu.”
“It’s like a common cold.”
“Once you test negative after having tested positive, you’re in the clear.”
“It’s given me antibodies!”
It’s not the case.
It’s not as easy as that.
It’s not suddenly over.
The fact that it’s always going to be with us. And when one gets it, especially for a second and possibly third, the shock can be quite significant.
Why?
Because the surprise is not having felt the symptoms, not recognising the signs, again.
A simple cough is assumed to be a simple cough, a restriction on lung capacity simply thought to be something else.
A blip in strength refusing to move on.
And then suddenly it all makes sense.
It’s COVID, again.
And then consider this: how many people go through the symptoms, go through the signs, with no sense at all that they’re going through another positive, and in doing so, that they’re at the risk of infecting others again, for the first possibly second time?
COVID 19 is showing us that the numbers do not have a limit: the cases, the losses.
COVID 19 is showing us that the damage can continue: across the body, across borders, across industries and communities, across the world.
COVID 19 is showing us that Mother Nature is still in charge. x
As the world watches in shock, one country continues to face immense trauma. Over 4 million people have fled their country in desperate hopes of finding a place of peace. Over 6.5 million have found themselves internally displaced. All in just over one month. (Source: UNHCR)
What difference does it make for one voice to call out, to express a thought, to say a prayer?
For millions upon millions seeking shelter, seeking safety, seeking to not be left alone and forgotten, it makes all the difference in the world.
In just a matter of hours one of the world’s most unifying events will come to a close: EXPO 2020. A six-month celebration of unity across 192 nations, EXPO will have brought together close to 25 million people of different countries, cultures, faiths, ages, and ideologies from across the globe – all sharing a commitment to a stronger, safer, more sustainable and sincerely unified future world.
At the heart of EXPO 2020 has been three central, symbiotic themes: Sustainability, Mobility, and Opportunity.
In the closing weeks of EXPO there was, however, one theme that emerged in one national pavilion which eclipsed all others: Humanity.
The pavilion: Ukraine.
The creators of pavilion architecture: the nation.
The exhibition curators: ultimately the world.
The indication of the message to the world from the outside: invisible.
The impact on entering the pavilion and feeling its message: an immediate flow of tears that was simply unavoidable.
What was once a national pavilion exhibition showcasing opportunities for connection to the world through innovation and investment had, in the past month of 2022, and last month of EXPO 2020, become a global show of sympathy and solidarity.
Immediately entering the pavilion visitors walked straight into literally a world of messages from the world to the people of Ukraine. Thousands and thousands. Everywhere, as far as the eye could see and heart could reach.
Unplanned, un-curated, and un-campaigned, the building had turned into a love letter from the world to the people of Ukraine across the world.
The power of the sight was penetrating. Thousands and thousands of times over, visitors to the pavilion left their mark:
one message,
one voice,
one expression of love,
one prayer,
times thousands and thousands and thousands.
One message,
one prayer,
can indeed unite the world,
including those who have watched from afar and found themselves voiceless, helpless, yet wanting to do something to show their solidarity, their care,
even if simply sharing a message of love.
The Ukraine EXPO pavilion became, so beautifully and so powerfully, a way of magnifying one voice, one message, and one prayer to tell the people of Ukraine that they were not alone.
Through a small pavilion a huge contribution was unexpectedly made to the legacy of EXPO, the Ukraine reinforcing the heart of the meaning, of EXPO:
one pavilion,
one people,
reinforcing the message that wherever we are in the world, no one nation, no one person, no one prayer, should ever stand alone. X
With each crisis that the world faces – each generation defining crisis that is put in our path to challenge us, to teach us, to unite us, we work through and push past with a pledge to “Never forget”. And yet we do.
The crisis becomes familiar. The crisis becomes acceptable.
We become bored.
COVID-19. It just seems to go on and on and on and on…
For over two years now, Mother Nature has been looking each and every one of us across the global community straight in the eyes, spending her limitless time and energy to teach us to come together as a true ‘community’,
how to work together,
how to solve a problem that has us all bonded together in fragility, in fear, in hope,
how to care.
At times it seems she has been unwilling to release her pandemic grip on the globe despite all of the global community’s remarkable speed of response honouring first signals of danger, exceptional speed and creativity in medical innovation, immense logistical strength of reach and roll-out of vaccines and essential supplies. Progress, unparalleled progress, was being made, but she was simply not impressed. It’s just goes on and on and on.
And so, people have become bored.
In parts of the world one where masks are coming off, one can feel a distinct feeling of having moved on – a dangerous acceptance that COVID 19 is simply going to be like any other flu. The fear has faded, the respect for risk has been lost. The widened lens of compassion for ‘we’ inspired by COVID is starting to pull back into a setting of ‘me’.
Yet in other parts of the world the case curve is suddenly going up. The level of audibility of conversations around a next wave of spread is going up. Threat of renewed border closures are going up.
The crisis continues, it goes on and on and on…
And then BOOM! Suddenly something else attracts attention. The world is thrown into another crisis – war in Ukraine – as one nation unleashes its muscle and might on another, stripping it a nation of its security, of its stability, of its humanity. The noise is louder, the images darker, the interest stronger.
COVID-19? The world looks away.
The world has become bored with COVID. People have forgotten the fact that it’s still with us. It might not be as loud, as dramatic (anymore), as incomprehensible. It might not be as visible, as shocking. It might not be attracting the attention it used to, but it is still going on and on and on.
We cannot afford to become bored – we cannot look away, putting ourselves in a position of not caring, be it about enduring COVID crisis, or the escalating Ukraine crisis, or the next, and the one after that, and the one after that. The emergence of new crises will go on and on and on and on.
AA: “You still need for X. Please scan here and make sure you fill it out before you board. Travel Insurance?”
HP: “What travel insurance? Not needed – in transit to Y.”
AA: “Still needed for X, even if in transit. Look – it says it here.”
(AA shows HP her screen)
AA: “No travel insurance?”
HP: “No, no travel insurance.”
AA: “Able to buy now?”
HP: “How??!”
AA: “So no travel insurance. I’m very sorry. Boarding denied.”
HP: (Heartbroken silence)
This conversation line is not fiction. It happened. Personally. Horribly. And no doubt it will happen somewhere, to someone, again.
The countdown to travel. Pre-2020 it was a heart-lifting sleep count, a time of joyful readiness to venture out, people and places loved just a short/medium/long-haul journey away. And then came COVID – our shared world’s immense, intense challenge to travel ecosystems. And travellers.
Long gone seem the days of arriving at an airport for international travel, stepping up to the check-in desk, having passport checks rapidly completed, being handed a boarding pass, and then wished a good trip. Today the process is one where anxiety can so rapidly eclipse sweet anticipation.
An unfortunate expectation of travel in 2022? Disappointment – being prevented from travel due to:
changes in regulations,
changes in airline schedules,
changes in return protocols,
and understandably
changes in heart.
Two years into the global pandemic, the travel world we once knew as a wide-reaching collection of exciting connections sadly remains a complex, ever-changing matrix of carefully and cautiously reopening of borders, reconnecting of routes, and reuniting people. While parts of the world are enjoying the restoring of domestic and international travel momentum, confidently feeling a sense of “we’ve made it”, in other parts of the world continued restrictions and tight travel regulations are faced, along with the enduring angst of “we’re not there yet…”
The required travel ‘extras’ continue to grow:
Extra time for protocols and paperwork, at every stop,
Extra costs for COVID tests, pre- and /or post,
Extra patience.
Which is why continuing to be highly sensitive to the raw, rapidly changing realities of travel in 2022 is critical. Navigating through ever-changing travel headlines, stats and mobility systems is one thing – undertaking the experience of global travel is quite another. Right now, wherever a traveller’s ‘right here’ may be, it is hard, because of the innate uncertainties – uncertainties around macro, widescale travel systems:
Borders unblocking,
Flights flying,
Hotels re-opening,
Attractions re-attracting,
and micro, individual travel capability:
Paperwork in place,
Barriers unblocked,
Hopes fulfilled.
At times it can so easily feel that travel confidence can only be felt when physically sitting on the plane. Until then, nothing is for certain.
Travel, international travel, is not easy. Not now.
But these travel pains are not forever.
Travel joy will be with us once again, once our travelling world has mastered living with COVID, living through the now inescapable realities of moving around the world.
In 2022, as new year optimism provides the global community with greater buoyancy, each and every one of us need to rebuild our travel muscles. Being grounded for two years has left us weak – weak in walking lengths through the airports, carrying luggage, navigating our way through small spaces, stretching our way through those that are large. This restrengthening is critical.
So too is re-strengthening of our travel hearts – finding and showing compassion that has never been seen before when see people struggling in airports with paperwork that has not been fully completed, struggling to find someone to help them make sense of the fine print that was invisible until check-in, struggling to accept their plans have been dramatically altered, struggling to keep their travel dreams alive.
We as a global industry need to dedicate 2022 to re-strengthening the mind, the body, and the heart of global Travel & Tourism as country by country, region by region, journey by journey, the world reopens to travel once more.
Never before have the words of one of our world’s most missed travellers been more true:
“Travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But that’s okay. The journey changes you; it should change you. It leaves marks on your memory, on your consciousness, on your heart, and on your body. You take something with you. Hopefully, you leave something good behind.” – Anthony Bourdain
Slowly, slowly, the seconds count down. In a matter of hours 2021 will be no more. Another long, long year is coming to a close, the longing for the chance to start anew just a matter of hours away.
What happened?? 2021 was supposed to be the year we all came together, stronger, safer, closer, more hopeful, more helpful. What happened? Mother Nature happened, or rather continued to define what felt to be happening to us:
Promises of recovery turned to enduring pain.
Promises of freedoms turned to pouts.
Promises of ‘normal’ turn reality of ‘normal‘ into an enduring strain,
Promises generally fraught.
The temptation to fast-forward is real. It is raw. And it is rife. But it would be wrong. There is work still to be done before midnight strikes – hard work, heart work. Healing. And releasing.
For with every new vista ahead of us, there is the opportunity to leave what we choose behind.
This year, as final moments near, the opportunity is immense, and can be intense. For this past year forced the world into a state of sustained stamina that has tested the strength of each and every one of us. Especially these past months.
To learn at what we thought was the last lap that a whole new race faced us all unleashed a wave of emotion that has tainted what should have been a peaceful, hopeful, joyful countdown to 2021’s close. ‘F’ words have dominated the vocabulary of the world as Mother Nature’s latest COVID creation – a new variant that was not unexpected but certainly undesired – re-activated, again, raw, very real feelings of:
fear,
frustration,
fury,
fatigue,
fragility,
forlornness,
so many simply fed up,
so, so many forgotten.
As midnight 31.12.2021
nears, now is the time, our chance, to leave the anger, angst and abandonment behind,
clearing our minds and hearts for all that is ahead,
cleansing the view. Restoring our faith.
Tick.
Tock.
Tick.
Tock….
Stop.
Shut your eyes, breathe in, center,
focus on what stays behind – be angry, be clear, be selfish,
and then be still,
find the eye of the storm,
find the calm,
find the safety.
Annnnnnnd release……..
‘Ready’ for 2022 is not a growl, it is not a yell, it is not a war cry for others to hear.
It is a hushed, soothing, silent whisper for our hearts to hold tight.
It was meant to be a day of thanks. On one side of the world, Americans were sitting down to Thanksgiving meals surrounded by loved ones, each pausing to openly express for what they were most grateful. In a similar spirit, across the world minds and hearts were quietly holding on to what has become a daily thought, even if one not overtly articulated: ongoing gratitude for general health, general wellbeing. Such are the times in which we live.
A mere 36 days from the close of 2021 it was to be, in a way, kick-off of the countdown to the close of the year when stealth and stamina made possible long, long awaited reunions with family and friends, desperately needed rest, emotional recharge having made it to the end of another uncertain year, and quietly whispered hopes that the worst of this COVID chapter of our lives was over.
As the hours of the day ticked on, announcements started to appear through global newswires: a new strain of COVID had been identified in South Africa: B.1.1.529 – one with a spike protein dramatically different from the original COVID virus, and one feared dramatically more dangerous due to high transmissibility.
And then Black Friday hit. As the world woke, immediately it started to see red:
Red geo-blockings on maps as countries were put onto travel ‘Red Lists’,
Red arrows as stock prices of travel-related business plummeted as much as double-digit, and,
Red hot words as people in a country once again being stigmatised for scientific expertise capable of identifying a dangerous new mutation within the molecular make-up of the virus turned to social media.
From East to West, the growing sense of panic around a mutating virus unleashed a terrifying speed of mutation of response never seen before:
New COVID variant confirmations mutating into travel bans by governments,
Travel bans mutating into immediate flight cancellations by airlines,
Flight cancellations mutating into future airline, hotel, tour, cruise, and attraction booking cancellations by travellers, as well as wedding and events cancellations by planners,
Cancellations across the travel experience chain and tourism economy ecosystem mutating into a sickening sense of déjà vu across the global Travel, Tourism, Hospitality & Aviation industries,
Cancellations mutating into tears. Tears, tears, and more tears. Again.
In just 24 hours, over 22 months of the global community living with and working through COVID19 seemed to be brought back to day 1. The slow regaining of momentum of recovery of travel economies around the world was stopped. All had been grounded. And sadly, trust and confidence of travellers has been broken.
Now, just a handful of days on, we continue to feel as if our hands are tied. The global healthcare community have indicated we have ten to fourteen days of waiting before we understand the risks of this new variant – now known as OMICRON following an unfortunate passage of time between connection to South Africa as the source of identification and the renaming as a global variant to eliminate (already now established) national prejudice.
As the world waits, the range of mental gymnastics across questions, concerns, commentary, and critique continue to mutate into a range of emotions: anger, fear, disappointment, abandonment, anxiety, depression. Once again, our shared world is feeling very alone.
Alone as individuals,
Alone as countries,
Alone as regions.
Everyone, exhausted, again alone.
But how to regain strength, how to heal?
By focusing on what cures us, focusing on how we stop the spread of anger, frustration, and isolation.
As a global community it is not about focusing on past tense: Who said what? To whom? When? Where? Why? These questions do not concern COVID, in whichever strain it appears. Anything ‘then’ is done.
Our challenge is now:
Who needs to say what? The WHO – helping us understand this latest strain of COVID 19, and those that risk following on, in a way that also helps us respond to future crises with greater calm, unity, data-based credibility, and compassion.
When? Now, ongoing, to keep us informed of the current reality to help tame temptation to panic without pausing for perspective, and yet allowed the time and respect the WHO need for the analysis to be done, the implications to be understood, the data-based plans to be made.
Where? Priority on ‘boostering’ the baseline – getting the right vaccines to the right (currently low availability & accessibility) places across the globe, through the right people, in the right quantities for full coverage, right now.
Why? Because that is the only way to protect one another holistically, equitably, sustainably, and aggressively as members of an interconnected, interdependent global community.
‘Mutation’ is a theory of nature that is inevitable, it is unavoidable, and it is manageable. In these times of COVID crisis and resulting chaos, our challenge, our chance, is mutating our energies from arguing problems towards finding solutions – global solutions – rapidly, as if, and because, our lives depend on it. x
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With each crisis that the world faces – each generation defining crisis that is put in our path to challenge us, to teach us, to unite us, we work through and push past with a pledge to “Never forget”. And yet we do.
26.11.2021.