1) All Of The Lights:

COVID then and now and forever

2) A new colleague joined; we're eating dinner to celebrate. For some, it was the first time eating out in a year.

3) It was crowded and hip, the sort of place where wealth and tattoos comingle.

The walls had street art splashed all over, and couples were going on dates, celebrating the loosened COVID restrictions.

4) And for an hour, it seemed like COVID was over.

Yeezy infused the space, pulsing in our ears. Maybe he came from one of the boomboxes on the walls.

Maybe he came from all of them.

5) ----------------------

Like many other places in Asia, Hong Kong mostly managed to keep COVID out.

Less than 0.20% of the population caught it, and less than 0.01% died. Most of us have never met anyone who got COVID.

And in many ways, that was great (obviously!).

6) The city never really shut down.

Offices have been open the whole time, and movement has been free internally.

It's been safe and functional.

7) But life was throttled. Most night clubs haven't been open for months, and restaurants closed early. People grew more distant from each other.

The whole city kept their heads down (and, of course, masks on).

We made it through, perhaps limping a bit.

8) In the states, on the other hand, things were... Messy.

More than 10% of people have gotten COVID, and when all is said and done a million might die. Some cities shut down, others stayed open and paid the price.

And then the vaccine came.

9) And as it spreads through the states, life resumes, to some extent, as it was before.

At this point, more people have been vaccinated than infected, and soon the whole country may be protected.

It was a no good, horrible, very bad year.

But it's not forever.

10) -----------

As we left dinner, the illusion fell away.

The restaurant was loud and crowded and _alive_.

Outside, the rest of the alley was dead.

11) Hong Kong avoided COVID. And, maybe as a consequence, vaccinations have been sloooooooow.

Only 1.5% of the city is fully vaccinated, supplies of most brands are running low, and only those over 30 are allowed to get it at all.

12) We avoided the eye of the storm. But we're stuck in an endless drizzle.

Which brings up the biggest thing that the world misunderstood about COVID.

13) While the virus spreads, you're left with an unpleasant spectrum, between shutting down the world and people getting sick.

Life in the COVID times sucks.

And there were only ever two ways out:

herd immunity, and vaccinations.

14) The goal--the _real_ goal--is the get back to normal.

Which means some combination of racing to a vaccine, and getting COVID.

And so many of the world's approaches never made any sense.

15) In the US, it looks like a substantial fraction of the population will get COVID by the time vaccines finish doing their job.

A bit more lockdown, or a bit faster path towards vaccines, and those could have been avoided.

16) But the worst thing you can do is kinda-sorta-shut down-but-not-really, just enough that you pay all the costs--but just little enough that half the population gets COVID anyway.

Sure, the vaccine came, but in the end it was only somewhat better than herd immunity.

17) Or, as we've seen over here, to drag out the process for months upon months, keeping the city from waking up.

The whole point of avoiding COVID was so you could get the vaccine and then resume your life.

We're so close to the finish line!

18) But the specter of COVID drags on, because we haven't given the finishing blow.

In the end, 2020 sucked for the world: that was a given.

But then 2021 comes. And 2022, and the whole rest of the timeline. And that's what really matters.

19) The worst thing we could do is let COVID haunt us forever, never quite waking up.

It stole a year from us, but we still have our future.

If we give up that, we give up everything.

20) The scariest thing I've heard about COVID is the suggestion that maybe this should be the new normal.

That strains will come back each year, and we'll have to avoid them.

That social distancing is here to stay, year after year.

21) The talk about how we avoided some cases of the flu, so maybe we should try this more often.

That masks are the way to live.

That maybe we should trade our essential freedoms and our future to avoid risks.

That maybe we should throw the baby out with the bathwater.

22) There's a lot of lazy thinking going on there (anyone want to guess the long term health impact of the lack of exercise and social stimulation that defined 2020?).

But there's also a lack of thinking about the endgame, and what we're here to do in the first place.

23) We shut down people's lives for a year to avoid COVID.

The only way that makes sense is if we can make it to full vaccination with few cases promptly.

24) And as the world waffles about, letting COVID spread anyway or not bothering to get everyone protected, we lose what we bargained away a year of our lives for.

Adding ultimate insult to injury.

25) I miss the feeling of the city on a Friday night:

The mobs of people crisscrossing through the city; the music pulsing through LKF; restaurants full to the brim; all of the lights and sounds and life and excitement.

The future is all we have.

It's time to embrace it.