Publisher: First Sunbury Press Edition

ISBN: 9781620067000

When Covid-19 struck us with a vengeance, two expressions came to mind, the Yiddish one, “Mann Tracht, Un Gott Lacht” meaning, “Man Plans, and God Laughs,” and the long-familiar one, “The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry.

I suppose you could state that during our present times that both indeed now apply as we puzzle how our lives will alter considerably from the one we had before the pandemic outbreak.

The twenty-five chapters of After the Pandemic: Visions of Life Post Covid are linked by a spectrum of several writers who present different perspectives amid our interrupted lives. Each one uses their competence, from medicine to economics, sports, philosophy, and many other compelling issues. These include essays on change and embracing it, the role of plaques in human enlightenment, the 1918 pandemic, how will future pandemics be different, a grandmother perspective, deferred dreams, the great equalizer, fighting solo as a single parent, left behind, public health care, medicine in the post era of the pandemic, looming health insurance problem, effects on education, homeschooling, cultural institutions, and how will it affect our youth.

Several contributors caught my eye with their particular take on the consequences of Covid-19.

Tory Gates, a young adult/crossover fiction author and a broadcaster with over thirty years’ experience, leads with his essay, embracing change. His piece is divided into two segments, fear and appreciation. His stand on our situation is that we now have time to ponder, really think. He further emphasizes that our lifestyle will not alter that much, but we must reexamine our way of living. We now have more time to appreciate our loved ones, friends, pets, or places that we currently cannot visit.

Lawrence Knorr, who has been teaching business and economics at the college level for roughly twenty years, provides a brief analysis of the different possible impacts on the economy, focusing primarily on the USA. The areas he touches on include real estate, renting, leasing, state and local government, finance and insurance, health and social care, durable manufacturing, retail trade, wholesale trade, non-durable manufacturing, Federal Government, information, arts, entertainment, construction, waste services, utilities, mining, corporate management, education services, agriculture, international and the ramifications concerning various countries.

Chris Fenwick, a writer, technical project manager, and e-commerce professional, concludes the collection by reminding us that creativity is the mother of invention. He reasons out that even before the pandemic, we encountered many challenges such as global climate change, poverty, nuclear weapons, and megalomaniacs, with political and firepower threatening us. What we considered being grave perils, only a few individuals were predicting what would be the effects of a lethal pandemic. By the time we realized what was transpiring, it was too late to avoid the epidemic from advancing across the world. Yet, as Fenwick states, “these visionaries-creative problem solvers and experts with specific expertise-are what we need to meet this test, and other challenges that lie in wait to overtake us.”

There is much to learn from these enlightened and entertaining works. Crisis moments present an opportunity to transform our attitudes. We now have an exceptional opportunity to take our time to recognize and explore the long-term ramifications affecting our lives. As the days pass into weeks and months, many of us will acknowledge that reorienting our relationship to our world, and each other is hardly such an awful thing.