Just a few months ago, we were all busy and scurrying around like ants—busy gathering and storing for the future with unyielding fervor.  And now, we all sit—busy doing nothing but worrying about the future and how little control over it we have.

Isn’t it interesting that for the first time in most of our lives, we are all one; we all in this together.  And we need to be, more than ever before.  We are confronted with a virus that is sweeping across this small globe of ours, all the while breaking our hearts and homes.  The amount of devastation and isolation we suffer from today, however, shouldn’t be what shapes us tomorrow.

The global response needs to be united.  We have to work together to save the future.  Regardless of your view on how it started or who started it, we have to work together.  Regardless of your view of it being a horrific pandemic or an overblown media circus, we have to work together.  This is one of the defining moments in our world’s history where we can’t be individual continents, countries, states, cities, towns or people.  We have to be a unified front—our health, our economy and our future depend on it.

The sacrifice we all have to make is for others as well as ourselves—those on the front lines like healthcare workers, grocery clerks and Amazon delivery drivers.  But we also have to sacrifice for the less healthy and the less fortunate.  No one wants to be in harm’s way and no one wants to get sick.  So shouldn’t we follow guidelines and be cautious to help our neighbors and our population?

If your area is cautiously emerging from the lockdown, remember that others are still in isolation.  There are consequences to that and it could be dramatic.  While we were united, we were able to change the projected trend and have a glimmer of hope.  Don’t let that traction slip because you now have the freedom to go back to what you were doing before it all started.  The virus is still out there—nothing has changed from yesterday to today except that your government leaders now allow you to get a haircut or sit in a restaurant.  Is that simple pleasure really something that can’t be negotiated for the greater good?

For the first time in a very long time, we all have one thing in common—Covid-19.  None of us know the future with any great certainty and none of us can beat the virus alone.  The sooner we stop trying to be individuals and worry about our ‘rights’, the sooner we can stand together as an interconnected world and work to protect each other.  We all have a stake in this and we all have a role to play.

But this isn’t our only defining moment.  Once we are successful as a global community, we must learn and remember this so that it does not happen again.  A future without a pandemic as this poses a unique and global challenge. In order to give ourselves the best chance, we must rally around science and solidarity to find vaccines, treatments and therapies in order to make the world healthy again and avoid another Covid-19 rerun.