First, it was the cruise ship with a mysterious, little-known illness that captivated global news headlines for weeks.
Then, came the announcement from the World Health Organization that the Ebola outbreak spreading across three countries in Africa should be considered a public health emergency.
Earlier this week, news of an American doctor’s infection with Ebola and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s new travel ban on international visitors who’ve visited impacted countries where Ebola has been found are sparking new fears.
Yet they’re not fears of the unknown.
No. For some, they’re worse. They’re fears of what we have known.
The pandemic ended, depending on who you ask, about three or four years ago. We’ve had some time to recover our lives, to re-shift our daily habits, hobbies, and social lives back to a similar way in which we’d lived pre-pandemic.
Yet we can’t really lose the pandemic era. It’s etched into us, from our immune systems to our memories to our emotional responses to news about yet another rare, spreading virus.
I can’t predict the outcome of human-transmitted hantavirus or a rare strain of Ebola. I can only hope and pray, like all those concerned by the news, that the physicians and the powers that are in charge of stopping viruses like these will do their jobs well.
Yet the fear remains, and this leads me to question: will we ever recover mentally from the fear of another pandemic? Will we as travelers always feel a little more uncertain planning for the future than we did when we were ignorant of what a global pandemic looked like?
As a collective, I’m unsure. After all, we’re no longer solely concerned with matters of public health when we plan travel for the future. There’s geopolitical uncertainty, an increasingly volatile climate, wars raging around the world, and rising prices from all of it. There’s more to worry about now than before.
I hope we will, though. I hope we can get to a point where we as a community of Earth dwellers realize the importance of global action in containing and stopping deadly viruses before they become pandemics—and that this action endures long after we of the pandemic era are gone.
Until then: will fears control our future, or will we choose to hope in a better tomorrow? One where we don’t take pandemics or wars into consideration when we plan our vacations?
I hope we don’t. I hope we don’t read the headlines and grow cold inside thinking the world is not still as it once was, and will be again. Welcoming, connective, and kind.
Yes, we’re afraid. We don’t want to go back to the way things once were, when all the planes stood still and no one could travel.
That’s why I think we won’t. We value travel more now than we once did. We understand the freedom to travel is a privilege, not a right. And the physicians and scientists that were once on the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic now have experience under their belts: they won. It took time, but they did it.
I don’t think those same scientists and physicians would be numb to the same fear and worry about another pandemic that we ourselves feel. In fact, they likely feel it more, for they were the ones saving lives throughout it all, experiencing its human toll firsthand.
After all, travel was not the biggest victim of the pandemic.
So, let’s temper our worry and fear with a dose of hope: yes, we do not wish to return to those days. Then let’s do everything we can now to ensure those days don’t return—and for now, have hope.
For the latest travel news, updates and deals, subscribe to the daily TravelPulse newsletter.
Topics From This Article to Explore
