Lessons from the Pandemic!
It's hard to believe that more than three years have passed since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic is rarely in the news now and things are almost back to how they were before. But COVID–19 killed at least 6.8 million people worldwide and more than 13 thousand people on the island of Ireland. It is important for us now to reflect on the lessons we have learned and with that knowledge to better prepare for the next pandemic. In this article, we will highlight five important lessons from the pandemic. In the next article, we will mention five important recommendations of the next pandemic.
Lesson 1 – Put your faith in science instead of rumours
We take it for granted now, but the importance of vaccines and how quickly they were developed cannot be overemphasized. Not only that, but the development of an m-RNA vaccine is nothing short of a miracle – an innovative and revolutionary approach to vaccine design. Normally, it takes up to 15 years to design a vaccine, but it only took one year for COVID-19! Anti-vaccination misinformation did a lot of damage, because it scared some people, and they therefore refused the vaccine. Vaccines (including m-RNA vaccines) are safe, potent and effective. The more people who are vaccinated, the better the spread of the disease is prevented.
Lesson 2 – Masks work against the virus
Masks are able to slow down the spread of the coronavirus. There was uncertainty in the United States about that at first, because the authorities wanted to keep masks for doctors and medical staff to protect them from the virus. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) initially said that people who were not infected did not need to wear masks, but then changed their recommendation and said that everyone should wear a mask. Their messages were unfortunately conflicting and people were not quite sure what to do. As for what kind of masks to wear, there was a shortage of N-95 masks, and people had to wear cloth masks, which were not very effective against the virus.
Lesson 3 – Indoor air quality is important
At first, we didn't know much about how the virus spreads. But over time, we learned that airborne transmission is the most effective method of spreading the virus. Therefore, it is very important to use an air filter to remove virus particles. The best filter is a high efficiency particulate air filter (HEPA filter). Such a system is able to significantly reduce the amount of the COVID-19 virus, and it also reduces other disease vectors – such as influenza.
Lesson 4 – Wastewater monitoring is very useful in a virus pandemic
Early in the pandemic, the idea to monitor wastewater arose and that exercise grew as an approach over time. People shed particles of the COVID-19 virus before they have symptoms of the disease. Any surge in COVID-19 cases can be predicted a few weeks in advance by analyzing wastewater data. This analysis can be done area by area, and that is a great help in putting together a plan against the virus.
Lesson 5 – Genomic surveillance is necessary
Unfortunately, the virus mutates from time to time and changes the outer covering so that vaccines are no longer as effective. It is therefore necessary to design a new vaccine against a new variant, in a kind of biological warfare. Therefore, it is very important for all countries to be able to carry out genomic surveillance and find new variants as soon as possible. Even after the pandemic, it is still necessary to be alert, because you would never know when a new dangerous version will come out.
Conclusion
We feel relieved that the pandemic is now over, and life is almost back to normal. The pandemic was very painful and a large number of people died from the virus so it is easy to put the bad memories behind us and carry on as before the pandemic. But we have to go against our nature in this situation and not forget the pandemic and the lessons mentioned above. More than that, based on the lessons we've learned, we need to put measures in place to conquer the next pandemic, whenever it happens.
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