2020 division: a bad year for humility

Was there enough humility in 2020¹? Humility about the potential of a coronavirus. Humility about our unreadiness to tackle it; about our solutions and our ability to be ‘world beating'. Humility about our mistakes and missteps; about the premature deaths and the damaged lives. Humility about the extraordinary response of health professionals saving lives in bin bags and without masks. 2020 tested our humility and, as a collective, a country, a global community, we failed.

Why did the world fail the test of covid? The answers, of course, are many and complex but the central question at the start of the pandemic was whether the world would hang together? Hanging together meant cooperation, working collaboratively and learning from each other. Motherhood and apple pie it might be, but an old fashioned threat, weaponised by global travel,² demographics, and overpopulation, required an old fashioned response of shoe-leather epidemiology and traditional public health.³ It demanded international solidarity, and we didn’t deliver.

We see this in disjointed international policy making, with too many rich countries failing to heed the wisdom of East Asia and the World Health Organization. We see it in the scramble to procure personal protective equipment, ventilators, and vaccines. We see it in the attacks on multilateralism and the disregard for international collaboration. Regrettably, we see it too in the exceptionalist rhetoric of influential nations like the United Kingdom and the United States of America.

2020 showed humanity what it can't be. It can't be a selfish, squabbling, squandering species, unable to protect its most vulnerable and its minorities; unable to unite in the face of existential threats.^4,5 It can't be arrogant about its capabilities or its supremacy over nature.

2020 also showed us the potential of humanity, its resolution, its dedication to serve, its ingenuity, its self-sacrifice, and, at times, its humility, whatever the odds. And these were the responses of professionals and researchers in health and social care, of families and friends, of colleagues and co-workers. If we failed the test of covid in 2020, it was a failure of states, political leaders, and those who supported divisive politicians and flawed policies;⁶ in the rest, the silent majority who rolled up their sleeves and tightened their belts, we saw enough to offer hope of a better tomorrow.

COVID-19 brought out the worst in us, but the best in us still shone through. We will certainly need to nurture the best in us, for there is no vaccine for climate change except humility.