One of the most valuable lessons I’ve learned about dealing with conflict in a relationship is the idea of standing shoulder to shoulder and attacking the problem together instead of face to face and attacking one another. If we all applied this principle to the fight against Covid-19, I think we’d have a much better chance of successfully containing the spread and minimizing the long term effects of this dreadful pandemic.

The first step in fighting this battle together is identifying who or what is the enemy and perhaps even more important, who is NOT the enemy. The enemy is not the government, the public health authorities, or Bill Gates. The enemy is not 5G and it certainly isn’t your Facebook friend who thinks that Covid-19 is a hoax!

The enemy is a virus; a submicroscopic infectious agent that invades living cells and uses their chemical machinery to stay alive and to replicate itself. It doesn’t care whether or not we believe it’s real. It doesn’t care what our political views are, whether we’re young, old, or in-between, or if we’re good at math. It just needs an available host.

We can exhaust ourselves arguing about whether or not we should be wearing face masks and using hand sanitizer. We can wave protest signs and refuse to follow recommendations and requirements. We can spread rumours and accuse one another of all sorts of heinous things, but the virus doesn’t care! As long as we’re standing face to face and fighting with one another, it will simply continue its insidious attack. It will kill more of our elderly and vulnerable. Some of its victims will get off easy, but others will suffer long term physical and mental harm.

OR we can stop attacking one another and stand shoulder to shoulder against a common enemy. We can admit that we’re all in this together and that there are no quick fixes or easy answers. We can temporarily put aside our personal preferences and stop rebelling against every measure that is put in place to try to protect us.