Let’s not return to normal post-COVID. Make Idaho and nation better, for the common good

As more people get COVID-19 vaccines, we breathe more easily. We envision a future with all the activities that we’ve had to put on hold for a long time. We look forward to gathering comfortably for worship, fellowship, plays, movies, concerts and all the many other fun things we do as a community.

But let’s not say that we will “return to normal,” because our old “normal” was not working. Returning to the pre-pandemic status quo would be a mistake. We learned during the past year that there are so many issues in America that need to be addressed.

We learned that tying our health care to employment was problematic. When people lost their jobs during the pandemic, they lost their health insurance, too. Travel plummeted because people wisely stayed home; a whole industry had to lay off people. People ordered delivery — how many of those delivery folks have access to an employer-sponsored health plan? The image of “choice” in employer-sponsored health insurance is rather illusory, when you can lose it because your employer changes or lays you off.

We learned that we have challenges in acknowledging scientific expertise. People rushed to believe something they saw on social media rather than doctors. Science and medicine are cautious in nature; they make a hypothesis, test it and revise their hypothesis. They are not rooted in whether we feel it’s true, but rooted in evidence. If they get it wrong, they listen to what the evidence says. We Americans have an assumption that our “common sense” is as good as someone else’s expertise, and that’s not true.

We learned that for all the talk that we’re ready to sacrifice for the common good, we’re not as ready as we think. Simple face masks were seen as an abominable imposition by some, but asking our health care workers to sacrifice their lives, reuse equipment and work exhausting hours to try to keep people alive was somehow a reasonable request.

We also learned that the deep inequalities and injustices in our society remain unaddressed. The effects of racism are not limited to the past! Bias has not gone away, and it won’t go away unless we can talk about it honestly and be willing to learn. We see that the poor and those with disabilities continue to face challenges to fuller participation in our common life.

So what should we do to build a better future post-COVID?

Instead of jumping to a statement of faith from my Christian tradition, we can start with something we Americans share in common: the Preamble to the Constitution.

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

A “more perfect” union would be one where we work together for the common good, not just what’s good for “me.” Real justice weighs the needs and responsibilities of everyone to create fairness and equity. Domestic tranquility is created when we work together for solutions, not simply see one another as enemies. We can easily imagine the common defense against exterior enemies, but what about something minuscule like a virus? We could promote the general welfare by looking to ensure that everyone has access to the basic necessities of life, not starting from an assumption that if they don’t have it, then it’s their fault.

These would secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and those who come after us.

That would be a lovely post-COVID America, don’t you think?