Happy New Year 2021!

Looking back on ’20 likely lets all of us wonder what this was … . No one anticipated the impact of a full pandemic development (although … there as been a study about the potential impact of such a development online earlier). Lots of bad things happened but also some good bits and pieces are in the mix. First we saw these important people that guaranteed that our society is somehow working also in a lockdown situation but finally apart from applauding – financially this respect did not manifested itself much. Same applies for the care system and the medical system in Germany – they finally had to work so hard because some didn’t even wanted to understand that there is indeed a virus that some people die from and second because at the winter 19/20 corona wave politicians reacted too late (“there is no glory in prevention”). This pretty much is the most mind puzzling and confusing aspect of the Corona pandemic imo. There are some that just do not have the intellect and/or do not want to understand whats going on. This is a very frightening aspect that has the potential to threaten the societal coherence and solidarity which is very much needed in this situation. The other category I found worth identifying is the overall lack of support for those that are part of the cultural world. Artists in general, musicians, graphic artists, cinematographers, the local cinema entrepreneur, theaters and the full business that is linked to cultural events, sport events and music events – lots of freelancers that suddenly had no income and I mean “no” – so zero – nothing. In fact the support for these people was negligible to non-existent (this did not include me since I am also working for the University and educate students to analyze satellite imagery for environmental and research applications). There also doesn’t seem to be a lobby working for these people that demonstrates their importance. But then there is also no reward for those that right now have to work very hard to save all these people in the hospitals that got a severe Corona infection. I believe after all is said and done we will have to reweight how we reward/fund work for our society.

There is another aspect of the COVID-19 pandemic and that has to do with speed of life, way of working, evaluating what is important for your life/ and time. Thats basically what it turns down to – how to use the limited resource of time that we all have. 2020 made it somewhat clearer for me where to go and what not to do. I strongly believe that this is exactly the big positive aspect that we can draw from the “20” pause & break. More precisely re-evaluating how to live life and where to set the course … maybe to not start the race again – this is hard to overrate. Also thinking globally but buying locally got a different meaning in 20.

So in that sense 2021 should be a much better year. And please everyone out there: go and get the COVID-19 vaccination when your time has come to get one! And lets be thankful that the tax payers investment in science now pays back! Since finally science & educated decisions will end this.

All the best for 21!