20 Observations from 2020

The year from hell, the scourge we called 2020, just kept on coming. But with the year officially at an end there exists an opportunity to review and reflect on what has been an unprecedented year save and except for those over the age of 103. The giant, coordinated pause worldwide provided a chance to stop and notice things that at one time would have otherwise been overlooked or just accepted without thought. With a second or two to stop and think (and write) amidst the chaos here are some general observations and some silver linings from 2020. By no means is this an exhaustive list.

1. We were given the opportunity to spend plentiful amounts of time with those closest to us. Prior to 2020 how many parents had the opportunity to spend this much time with their kids? Most young parents have to choose between work and family time, as they advance their careers to provide a good life for said family. This year, they did not have to choose. They could work from home without feeling ostracized, and be there all year with their family. And the mandated smaller group format for social gatherings extended to more time with siblings, parents and close friends. This meant more quality time and better conversations with those folks in your bubble.
2. When it rains, it pours. We had heard the saying before now we’ve lived it. Kobe, Trebek, wildfires, COVID-19, George Floyd, and murder hornets to name a few. And that’s without diving into the immeasurably devastating albeit more geographically specific events in places like Yemen or the explosion in Beirut. The truth is stranger than fiction.
3. Working from home, at least partially, can work long term. And the flexibility it provides people is fantastic. This is beneficial for employers (they can do more with less office space by hot-desking), employees (they will be more productive working during the hours that suit them best) and society as a whole (less flying and driving for work means lower global emissions).
4. Hybrid online and in-class learning can work. This one is a little trickier and it has to be executed correctly, but there is definite upside when we get it just right. Imagine — kids could learn on their schedule, watching online classes at the times that suited them best instead of during a strict 8am to 3pm time window. We now scientifically know that all humans have a Chronotype that dictates our optimal sleep times. We can use the new found flexibility to work around this. Morning lark? Great, get up early and learn. More of a night owl? Sleep in and watch classes in the afternoon, do homework in the evening. Students can then use their in-person time to meet with the teacher and go over the particular concepts they didn’t quite grasp. A student could even join a couple of other classmates in virtual breakout sessions to get specific clarity, or they could enter live virtual tutorials with other students from around the country who need help with the same parts as them. Teachers can be drawn on from different time zones, as can students. Time in general would be utilized more efficiently and effectively. Instead of 60 to 80 minute long classes with 30 people, you can have micro sessions of 10–15 minutes with groups of 5 people, but much more specific to the needs of each group. Tests can be objective and more frequent, done by computer, and feedback more immediate so response time to a student falling behind is truncated. This is not homeschooling. Much of this is still at school or on campus, so the social elements remains. It’s just more flexible. And it can be funded by congress. Trillions were available for direct deposit stimulus cheques. Hundreds of billions more were available for spendthrift companies who spent lavishly on bonuses and buybacks instead of saving for a rainy day. It can be there for educators and students.
5. Speaking of which — some businesses need a complete overhaul. It was barely two months into a pandemic and companies from cruise ship operators to airlines had burned through the entirety of their cash reserves. Two months. Meanwhile, record stock buybacks and management bonuses had flowed out the door in the years preceding 2020, and profits slimmed as so many airlines tried to compete on being the cheapest cost flight, not the best customer experience. That meant worse balance sheets and poor preparedness for an economic slowdown. Perhaps the government should stress test any company who looks for a bailout in the future or who has received one in the past, much like they did with banks? Or, require claw backs from executives based on future performance post-tenure so CEOs have to think further ahead than the next quarter. If these companies don’t shore up their own balance sheets, why should the taxpayer?
6. Restaurants and bars are the catalysts for modern culture. These venues, together with street events, artists and music events are the sparks that ignite the fire of culture in a thriving city. Without them, we’re just hamsters on a wheel spinning repetitively between work and sleep. The silver lining is for those who have wanted to open up a bar or restaurant, there is more opportunity than ever to do so, with the ability to choose from a myriad of now vacant spaces and the leverage to negotiate reasonable rents. So many of our beloved venues did not survive the pandemic, but from the ashes new ones will rise. Landlords have the ability to demonstrate their flexibility, working out arrangements like lower rent plus percentages of sales, longer terms, deferrals, partial ownership or any other creative manner to work with, not against, their tenants.
7. If you take care of your body, it will take care of you. The greatest thing you can do for yourself is keep your body healthy. That is especially true when one is weary of a highly contagious super virus. If you were given one car and it needed to last for the rest of your life, you would clean, buff, and tune up that vehicle every day, without hesitation. Our bodies and minds need to last, and should be treated accordingly. Sleeping the required 7–9 hours, exercise, proper diet — these things improve our immunology function and sensitivity, giving us better odds to fight off any virus we face. Thankfully, this the global scientific community miraculously created a vaccine for COVID-19 and did so in short order (comparatively speaking) but next time, we may not be so lucky. It’s on us to maintain a healthy lifestyle, especially as we age. You don’t have to be puritanical about it, but we should try to be healthy 80% of the time. It will go a long way.
8. Walking is therapeutic and should become a staple part of your daily activity. Not only does a light to moderate walk help your heart and your brain, the low intensity nature of the activity uses your fat stores instead of glycogen stored in your muscles, which your body reserves for higher intensity activity.
9. The world is the most advanced it’s ever been, yet extremely vulnerable. Objectively speaking, the world is better now than at any other time in human history. We are more educated, live longer, live better, have more secure access to food, instantaneous global communication, lower child mortality rates, and the list goes on. But the pandemic has unearthed some serious insecurities for many advanced nations, including being ill prepared (no pun intended) for biological disaster. So much of our progress is reliant on international cooperation and trade. That’s done wonders for advancement, prices, and invention. But it has a dark side. Take note of just one part — the pharmaceutical supply chain. Drug manufacturing requires active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), the stuff that has the healing effect, and formulations production, which turns the APIs into a consumable form. China and India alone produce 75–80% of the APIs for the US. And India relies on China for 70% of its APIs, so the whole system flows through those two countries. In China Rx, the author notes the last aspirin plant in the US closed in 2002 and the last acetaminophen plant in Europe closed in 2008. Lack of domestic production is the case for much of the Western World and some of the most important pharmaceuticals, from amoxicillin to hydroxychloroquine, penicillin to vitamin C. Worse still, this production is now in countries with looser production and environmental regulations. Without domestic production, countries without their own supply could be on a long waiting list. That could lead to some pretty dire outcomes.
10. There is more content available then there is time in your life and that gap is widening. Pick the things you like and watch/read/play it. Skip the stuff you don’t.
11. Does anyone miss a hangover? No concerts, no bars, no travel — huge losses in social events. But it also meant less drinking. There is upside to that.
12. People should save a little more. This year helped expose across a large swath of the population how many people are a paycheque away from extreme financial difficulty. Yet with no where to go and no one to see, online sales reached record highs, as did the stock market. Companies who could benefit from people at home and spending on content through their tablets, phone and computers, did. More of that disposable income (whether government payments or regular income) could have gone into savings.
13. Harvey Weinstein was convicted. Good, he deserved to be. The world took note and more people like him will go down for the count.
14. You learn the most about yourself and others in hard times. Anyone can be easy going when the picture is rosy. When the world outlook is less sanguine, or personal experiences turn sour, that pressure exposes true colours. Frontline workers like doctors, nurses, truck drivers and countless others went to work to ensure those who needed help could receive it, from food to medical care. Selfless volunteers offered themselves up for trials to test medications that could help create a vaccine. Meanwhile, others selfishly refused to do the least they could do and wear a mask or social distance, just exacerbating the pandemic. People remember who’s who.
15. Fixing Earth’s environmental fever is possible — but will take a massive overhaul. At the height of the pandemic lockdowns, scientific analysis shows reductions in greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, sulphur dioxide and nitrous oxide fell anywhere between ~25 and ~35 percent. This natural experiment proved (for any naysayers that remain) the human contribution to emissions by showing the converse — emissions reductions concurrent with activity reduction. This short lived cutback in driving and flying will do little to help climate change long term unless these temporary adjustments become systemic adjustments. Unnervingly, even with the whole world shut down we only saw average reductions of 25 to 35 percent, which means to reduce our environmental footprint permanently society has to change immediately. Governments and private investors must fund and implement alternative sources for energy creation, adjust government regulations, mandate reductions, and each of us needs to drastically overhaul our day to day carbon emitting activities. We will need to see gains across the board, upstream to down, to realize lasting reductions in GHG emissions. The “battle to save Mother Earth” is a misnomer. She will be fine, and has proven that over time. The climate change battle is about saving humanity.
16. Experience is the teacher of all things. Prior to 2020 most people had only ever read about a pandemic, or the financial depression or chaos that ensued. But you could drive a bus into the gap between an experience you read about and what it feels like to live through it. “So if I asked you about art, you’d probably give me the skinny on every art book ever written. Michelangelo, you know a lot about him”, Robin Williams says in Good Will Hunting to Matt Damon’s character, “But I’ll bet you can’t tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. You’ve never actually stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling; seen that.” Some things, you just have to experience for yourself. And how our grandchildren read about 2020 and how we recall it will not perfectly align.
17. The cost of renewables fell below the cost of fossil fuels. The IEA announced that solar energy is now the cheapest form of electricity in history. Separately but worth noting, wind power is the most efficient source of electricity when levelized to include mitigating emissions. The possibilities are endless, but the most important point here is consumers no longer need to choose between being green and living affordably.
18. Democracy faced it’s biggest challenge yet, and survived. The world watched with bated breath as the US election came and went, including challenges from the incumbent to deny the President-Elect and Vice-President Elect their victory. Baseless claims filtered through the justice system as those grasping at straws tried to undermine the electoral process and spread misinformation to boost their chances of success. Fortunately when push came to shove enough Judges and Congressional leaders made the right decisions.
19. Advances in mRNA may lead to cures for the flu or cancer. The concerted attention on finding ways to beat a virus meant an unprecedented level of research into emerging technologies like mRNA vaccines. Because of these advances and the time and money spent, we may sooner see a lifelong flu vaccine or cure for cancer than we did pre-pandemic.
20. Life is short. You don’t miss your water until your well runs dry, so the lyric goes. Written by William Bell and immortalized by Otis Redding, those words have never felt more true than after a year of lockdowns. In the grand scheme of things, we have very little time. Most don’t realize how much freedom — freedom to see loved ones and friends, freedom to travel, freedom from anxiety of catching a virus — is missed until you lose it. Act accordingly in the future (and once it’s safe to do so).

Giovanni