“There is no playbook for this.”
This understatement, made by Education minister Gord Wyant, underlines what most every leader and politician and health care worker is feeling right now as we all deal with the impact of COVID-19 and all of the rules and restrictions around it.
Looking at Wyant’s comments in context, he was speaking about the uncertain future for public education of our children in Saskatchewan in light of the pandemic — but in truth, this statement is applicable to the entirety of life under the COVID-19 umbrella.
There are calls from the Opposition leader for plans to be made to address how the government is going to handle all of this, from the outbreak in the North to the high ongoing costs to the taxpayers of all the programs and services being put in place.
Some people like to bring up the Spanish flu of a century ago as an example of an illness that greatly impacted the country, but that was a different situation in many ways, and the world itself was a completely different place, in a different time and way of living.
There really is no comparison to anything in modern history, so there literally is no playbook to follow or to read up on for a clue on how we proceed from here.
No one knows how long this situation is going to keep us locked down or if there will be a second wave of COVID infections to once again hold all of our lives hostage.
What’s more, no one knows what the end costs or results will be. What businesses or industries will close down, to never recover? What kind of debt-load are people, municipalities and governments going to face once everything is behind us and we move forward?
There is a feeling in some circles that things will simply go back to the way they were pre-COVID — but realistically, can anything ever be the same again?
Clearly none of us know what the future is going to bring, such as in health, finances, business, industry, education, recreation, entertainment … none of it will be the same.
But at the same time, people are creative and resilient, and will find a way to go on. This much is certain, and the will of people to continue living their lives, raising their children, running their business or setting policy for their realm of responsibility will provide the impetus we need.
We don’t have to know exactly what will happen, we only need to know, how are we going to face each new day and each new situation?
It will be hard to feel confidence about paths going forward, but we must do it. We must take one step forward at a time, and handle each new day as it comes.
Life will be hard for a while to come, but nothing worth doing is ever easy.
