How odd it is to be negligent of your blog for 3.5 years and then come back with an article about virus on your mind!
First off, it’s year 2020, 2020 screaming for a year of better vision 🙂 Seriously, I got inspired by a LinkedIn sharing by Alan Cohen, who reflected on 2019 a couple of month back and decided to reexamine what matters most to him in his life. I decided then that I should pursue my beliefs with more resolve – one of which is to share and learn more! So I am coming back to this long-forgotten blog.
Next, I want to apologize to those of you who have actually read some of my old posts and found them somehow interesting. I felt that I have in fact disappointed you with my failure to persist with my “Lens4Thoughts”. I indeed believe in sharing and learning together, except that I was not determined enough to persist.
I am very torn with the subject of today’s sharing [I have been working on this over the last two weekends]. On the one hand, I wish to share something witty and light-hearted to start the new year on a bright note. There are plenty of beautiful photos from my family trips to share and reflect upon. For any kids, who would not love cuddling with the warmth of the mom like that panda puppy. However, the dark cloud of Coronavirus overshadows so much of everyone’s life, from Wuhan China to Beijing, from Hong Kong to Macau, to Taiwan, from Oceania to North America, and so on. Nova Coronavirus weighs heavily on my mind — it’s a serious virus doing significant damage to our lives globally.
Wuhan, once a vibrant city of over 10 million people, had to go into lockdown in order to quickly control the spread of the virus. People of Wuhan deserves all the prayers and respect this world can give!
In the city today, healthy citizens have to survive the lack of daily supplies and the risk of being infected; those infected are enduring more due to the shortage of isolation and treatment facilities. Many people are losing their lives because proper care lost some races with the virus. Many brave and caring souls are working day and night inside Wuhan, providing medical care and life assistance to the needy, often with less-than-ideal protection for themselves. Many drivers and service personnels from DiDi are staying inside Wuhan, working overdrive to provide the necessary transport for doctors and patients alike. When I heard some of the accounts on how these workers strive to provide the best services in Wuhan while trying to shield their loved ones from risk concerns, and how volunteer groups comfort and draw encouragement from each other by taking group photo together, I fought back tears hard, but with no avail.
The battle is still raging on, spreading to cities near Wuhan, and to other major cities. With it, there are many more innocents who will suffer and many more heroic souls who will risk their own lives to help fight the virus. This outbreak is a threat to Wuhan, to China, and to the world, and our humanity! Working together to contain and eliminate this threat should be the overarching goal for all earthlings. Identifying the original source, understanding how it spreads, and effectively controlling it should be our highest priority!
No use crying over spilled milk. While it is imperative to find out how this virus break started, how it was handled, and who are responsible for failing to control it effectively early on, we must focus on winning over the virus spread right now! In this very spirit, let me make the following suggestions in fighting against the Nova Coronavirus. Needless to say, this is my personal thought, not representing my employer or anyone else:
- World citizens, including you and me in the capacity of an ordinary individual. While material and monetary donations are nice actions you can take to help, the best things for all of us should be avoiding big crowd with close proximity, following best personal-hygiene practice, and caring for each other. Of course, you should exercise your judgement when reading online posts and avoid spreading rumors and unfounded fears.
- Media organizations. The best a media organization can do during the time of war against virus outbreak is to more strictly stick to its mission — to inform timely, and not to mis-inform. A better informed mass can better fight the infection. The media should help discover blind spots or neglects in the execution of infection control actions. Media reports should avoid sensationalism and political bias, and avoid distracting people from the task of infection control by asking “who is at fault” prematurely.
- Governments. The war against virus infection can only be won when the virus is under control across the world! Governments must be open and collaborative. Governments must focus on virus control as a common objective and it should take priority over other trade or geopolitical issues. Governments should be careful in taking border, immigration, and other international exchange actions, in order to lend material and moral support effectively to the virus-control effort.
All our prayers and thoughts are with people of Wuhan, and all those who are negatively impacted! Humanity as one, we shall overcome!
LENS4THOUGHT - MAY SHARING BRIGHTEN YOUR LIFE'S JOURNEY! 