There is a harmful cognitive dissonance in this #coronavirus pandemic.

"We are not China, won’t happen to us."

"We are not Italy, won’t happen to us."

"We are not Europe, won’t happen to us."

Sure, Bob. Embrace delusion, disregard logic & reality. You will be just fine.

And so, 2021 becomes an uglier—less nice, more tired, more dire—2020, where too many countries are still ignoring reality and their neighbors as they unlearn lessons learned.

New year, same mistakes, same excuses, same future regrets.

Instead of ignoring Italy last February, "it’s just the flu", "we are not Italy, it won’t happen to us", we—the rest of Europe and too many other countries in the world—are now ignoring the UK in January, "it’s fearmongering", "this new variant is just Covid".

We saw what ignoring Italy did in this pandemic and we are doing the same thing with this new variant.

We saw what happened with Ischgl but many—politicians and people—chose to ignore the lessons learned because greed is king and arrogance is blinding. Switzerland knows it well.

We saw what holidaying in the summer from green zone to red zone, and vice versa, did to Europe.

Traveling with little to no epidemic control measures in place because it’s too complicated, travelers don’t like to test or quarantine, airlines only see and breathe green.

The new variant #B117, the sky high #COVID19 cases, and the stubborn disregard for reality, logic, and common sense, we continue regretting instead of preventing.

A pandemic is not normal, it is an exceptional event, there’s nothing business as usual about it.

There can’t be any business as usual as long as there is not enough testing, weak contact trancing, no quarantine/isolating, no help from governments, no will from people, & etc...

That is why there is no living with the virus. 2020 couldn’t have been any clearer about it. There is only more #COVID19 deaths, more #LongCovid, more suffering.

Everything that is bad can only get worse if we "live" with the virus.

Countries that went for a #ZeroCovid strategy understood this.

They understood that there is no 'Me, myself & I' in a pandemic. There is only 'We, together'.

And now they celebrate, they maintain a low or zero community transmission reality, and live the life we miss & wish for

Here, 2020’s motto 'why prevent if you can regret' reigns.

Still. In 2021.

Governments react late instead of acting early and then cry crocodile tears of "we didn’t know, we didn’t think, we didn’t imagine, we didn’t predict, who could have known".

Regret. Repeat. Regret.