Our Plague Year
For those of us who lived through the past year, we’ll play a variation on the game of “Where were you when X happened?” The Covid pandemic was less an event than a process, an incremental disaster. For us the game has become, “When did it first occur to you things could be really bad?” Perhaps it was early March, as the horror mounted in Asia and Italy. Or March 9, when the stock market dropped 2,000 points. A popular date is March 11, when the NBA shut down its season and celebrities announced they were infected. The week, staring March 9th, was a rolling series of shocks too profound for most of us to process in real time. We oscillated between shock and denial.
Visible signs of collapse were all around us, yet most of us weren’t able to assess the risk. Governors and mayors, grasping the enormity of shutting down their economies, couldn’t quite believe the pandemic would be worse. I was in the same boat, wondering aloud as late as Monday the 16th whether we should be trying to support breweries seeing 90% drops in customer support, or worrying about the virus. We were flying off the edge of the road before we realized we were in a car accident.
Beyond abandoning restaurants and pubs, people were panicking and doing weird stuff like stocking up on toilet paper. None of us understood what the real risks were or how to balance them. Even virologists and epidemiologists lacked the info about this “novel” coronavirus to know whether it would travel faster through the air or on surfaces. American doctors were advising Americans to avoid masks. Instead, we washed our hands obsessively and soaked them in solutions of alcohol after touching any surface—which we regarded as potential fields of death. And remember models? We were incredibly fascinated with the gothic numbers of dead they foresaw. I remember thinking in March that their time horizon, which extended to August, seemed unimaginable. August? How could we live like this until August? We’re modern humans, masters of science—surely someone knows how to end this?
However you mark the start of our plague year, its signature quality is one of dawning realization. No matter how much we learn or correct our faulty prior assumptions, they don’t prepare us for what lies ahead. Because we got so much wrong so recently, we have a sense of humility about peering forward. Yet one year(ish) is a good time to stop and consider where we started, what we thought at the time, where we’ve been, and what we can do going forward. Because that’s the other thing we’ve learned—even understanding we don’t know what comes next, we must get on with things. We can’t remain paralyzed forever.
Next week I’ll pick up on the Coronavirus Diaries, returning to the informants who have been so generous with their real, raw, emotional thoughts over the past year. Fortunately, the year ahead holds the promise of being so much better than the one we exit. At some point before March 2022, we may well even be sitting down to have a pint together. Vaccines are rolling out at a brisk pace, and President Biden pegged the fourth of July as a benchmark for our “independence” from Covid. For once, the future doesn’t seem too bleak to ponder.
Consider this an invitation to share your stories, whether you’re a brewer, publican, or beer fan. I would love to hear how you’re processing this past year, and may well fold your comments up into further Diaries. How has this affected you? What has the pandemic changed permanently about the world, about the way you engage it, about beer, brewing, and drinking? Let’s share our stories. The repercussions of this year will echo far into the future, and the stories we tell about it now will shape our understanding. I’m very interested to hear your thoughts.
You can contact me via email, social media, or in comments below. Cheers, my friends—we’re going to get through this.