A Paradigm Shift in the Battle to Defeat COVID

Hmmm, how will historyjudge our actions in the battle to defeat COVID?

Omicron: Here we go again.

My apologies if thatsounds like whining or bitching. It is a statement of fact albeit withemotional baggage attached. We thought that we were in the home stretch. Thenthe reset button was hit and we are right back where we started. It is likeviewing a lengthy online training program, which we begrudge having to endure,and having it crash forcing us to restart at the beginning.

Alberta Premier JasonKenney has been quoted as saying that Canadians have reached the outer limit ofwhat further public health restrictions they are willing to accept. Many wouldagree.

But I do not want to get bogged down up to the axle in the mud of the “Is it really all necessary?” debate. I want to take a step back and talk about the paradigm shift that has occurred. If you are not familiar with the term, a paradigm shift is a fundamental change that happens when the usual way of thinking about or doing something is replaced by a new and different way.

The paradigm shift I want to talk about is the evolution in the way we as a society (the royal we which always has a dissenting segment) chose to respond to a threat to our health and safety.

In times past (definedin this case as my lifetime), when a new illness arrived on the scene, weevaluated the threat objectively, took reasonable and necessary precautions andcarried on with our lives. We trusted that our bodies are equipped to protectus from illness and augmented that ability with a vaccine on a voluntary basis.

We were more concernedwith the continuity of life and the quality of it than with daily case counts.

Now the paradigm shift that took place when COVID arrived on the scene. We evaluated it nervously and built worst-case scenario models, attempted to erect a brick wall of precautions and put a large part of life on hold. We broke faith with our body’s ability to protect us and attempted to supplant that ability with a new vaccine with sanctions for those who opted out.

We became less concernedwith the continuity of life and the quality of it than with number crunchingand wrestling with the stubborn daily case counts.

Paradigm shifts in andof themselves are neither positive nor negative. They are simply the evidenceof a significant change. The decisions and motivations behind them, including therelative values assigned to individual rights and the greater good, are subjectto judgment. But I will leave you to draw your own conclusions on that front.

My job is to translatethe paradigm shift into a metaphor. So here it is. We shifted fromstrategically defending our borders to a declaration of war accepting thecasualties that come with it as necessary collateral damage.

In the end, it ishistory that will judge us (the royal us).

~ NowAvailable Online from Amazon, Chapters Indigo or Barnes & Noble: HuntingMuskie, Rites of Passage – Stories by Michael Robert Dyet

~ Michael Robert Dyet is alsothe author of Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel whichwas a double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’swebsite at www.mdyetmetaphor.com .

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