COVID-19 has changed our lives. Some of the changes I hope endure, however, most of them I’d be happy to never experience again.
And there will be side-effects to what we’ve been going through the past few months.
One of these effects is the erosion of trust. The world’s response to COVID-19 was to train us to distrust one another. Trust is no longer earned through our actions and the make-up of your character. It is something we bestow on family and close friends. For everyone else, well, they might be a carriers and for that reason we don’t trust them to come near us or our families. They could make us sick, cause our deaths. So we avoid them, keep them at arms length. We make them the ‘other’.
We curse people under our breath who come too close to us. And we hold out breaths when we pass others on the street.
And the only thing left for us to do is wait. Wait for this to pass and then wait for the fear to subside. And I think the fear will take its time in going away and leave an indelible mark on how we trust one another