It’s a new year of living with COVID-19. Saturday, January 7, 2017 was my first day of COVID-19. I woke up nervous and excited. It was my first meeting with the work group of the year. The meeting was a “lunch and learn” of the minority deposit institution working group of the Los Angeles Chapter of Project REACh, an Office of the Comptroller of the Currency-sponsored event.
I’ve been working with the working group for about three months to set up an event designed to bring together financial institutions to share information about the Bank Secrecy Act and Anti-Money Laundering. We’d arranged for speakers on various subjects of BSA/AML, and one of the banks had graciously arranged to offer a conference room in downtown Los Angeles with a light lunch for those who wished to attend in person.
This meeting covered topics such as managing risk by third-party payment provider to updating existing laws. An interesting panel on the management of banking relationships with cannabis-related businesses proved to be a useful discussion about changing American culture.
This group of people has been my partner for more than a year. I’ve gotten to know them over virtual meetings. This would be my first meeting them face-to-face. It was a great feeling to be able to network for business again.
To temper that expectation, however, I must accept the fact that I will be interacting with a new group of people. The truth is that any new contact made in this time period exponentially broadens one’s exposure to COVID-19.
That’s the risk management question every human on this planet faces individually. Individual diligence is the best substitute for any directives or mandates from government or health departments.
Over the past two years, it’s not like I have not interacted with people physically. Many times, I attended gatherings with people I know in places and situations I am familiar. These risks were managed with great balance.
I felt like this was a return to the future. This was going back to business in a style that I’d been missing from my life since the beginning of 2020. It felt like I was reentering The Matrix. The real question was how much it would feel “a little weird.”
Plugging Back In
Like all other physical gatherings, entry to the building could only be granted by those on a preauthorized list. It was mandatory to wear masks when in public. Everyone who was present had to show proof that they were vaccinated.
The rising incidence of COVID-19 Omicron variant infection prompted the decision to make the meeting entirely virtual just before 2021.
Around a dozen brave souls, along with myself, were there to witness the event. Thirty people, representing various banks, opted to join the Zoom meeting that was held alongside the event.
The Empty Shell of a World
It was my first impression of the trip to the venue. Traffic was not a problem on the normally crowded freeways in the Los Angeles basin or the streets of downtown LA. My GPS told me to not use the toll lane, even though it was in my car. It was not possible to see any cars as I approached Flower St. after getting off the freeway. In pre-COVID LA, that area of downtown LA was jammed with pedestrians and cars on Fridays. It felt like a thick carpet of people. All of this was not to be found. The underground parking lot, where you would have to search desperately for parking spaces, was nearly empty. There were only a handful of cars surrounding a large mass of concrete.
After putting on my mask, I entered the building. I was the one who had my name written on one of these stickers. This could have been the sole event that took place in the large commercial building on that fateful day.
The elevator transported me to the second floor, which was the conference room. There I was met by friendly faces and told to proceed to the registration desk to present proof of vaccination.
One handshake is the norm. Faist-and-elbow-bumping, jokingly about the weirdness of it all is now normal. What hasn’t changed, thank goodness, is that behind the masks, that eye contact that makes meeting another member of the human species in person unique, remains as electric as ever. You just don’t really capture the intensity of the connection that comes from looking a person in the eye via a camera meeting.
This is business networking for the year 2022.
A Common Experience
While exchanging pre-meeting notes, other attendees also commented about their ability to easily travel from the starting place to the venue. This included people who, in pre-COVID-19 times, would have skipped this meeting in downtown LA because the traffic would have been so bad that it wasn’t worth making the trek. All of them made it to the meeting in record time today.
Eventually, there was a common thread among us all. It was a surprise to all that we had met in person. Many shared their stories, many of them mine, about missing human contact in the past two years, which included seeing coworkers only on computers screens.
Humans are social creatures. We all become depressed over time the more isolated we feel. Our eyes begin to turn inward. We begin to look inward.
When we have the opportunity to interact in real life with another person, we experience joy. It’s an endorphin rush meeting someone new for the first time. When it’s been a couple of years since it’s been a commonplace activity, each hello feels so much more intense.
The joy felt in the air amongst the others. It was the looking into their eyes. It is the ability to react in real-time and respond to different voices. We reveled in the subtle movements of each other’s body language; the total feeling that can only be felt when all of one’s senses are engaged.
Everybody commented on how many people had missed it. Everyone commented on how blessed we were to enjoy this day.
Held Lives
It’s been a long two years since the beginning of the pandemic. Many people feel depressed from being isolated and unable to socialize with others.
Many people had experienced a lot of stress in the past few months.
Each person has their own COVID-19 story. At the meeting, the most popular topic was the number of people who had to cancel Christmas due to a loved one contracting the new variant of COVID-19 during the holidays.
In the two last weeks, some of my business calls had been with patients who are in self-quarantine after COVID-19. It is also part of the new norm.
It’s just too much. They don’t like the depression of isolation. It’s costing them portions of their souls that they do not wish to lose. They don’t want their lives to be kept on hold any longer. As me they’re beginning to think about how to break out of their cocoons. It’s time to come out into the sunshine and live again.
This is a serious disease. It is important to have an understanding of how to manage your risk in this new environment.
21It is possible to Century Tools
COVID-19 is a serious disease that I believe there are no ways to prevent. As this pandemic progresses, I think there’s a 100% chance each person will become infected.
Over time, the ability of the virus infecting new hosts has increased dramatically. The virus tends to be less deadly when infecting people, which is a good thing for humans. COVID-19 is expected to continue this trend of being more similar to the severe flu and cold.
It is possible that it will find a new type of disease, or a random mutation that makes it even more deadly. It could learn how to cause acute auto-immune disease or cancer.
Today’s biotechnology is vastly better because it relies on the disease process analysis to quickly find avenues to tailor vaccines.
Artificial intelligence is used to rapidly search through databases of permutations of virus intercepts and create vaccines. This technology represents one of science’s greatest breakthroughs. It’s man and machine working together.
They are now vaccine innovations that can happen quickly, as opposed to decades of research. Specific vaccines are now available that can treat or prevent the deadly symptoms. Computer models are able to assess safety in humans by using data-based risk reduction instead of laboratory animals or observations.
The virus can still be resilient and it has the potential to infect new host, regardless how many human efforts are made to limit it. It is our duty to find ways to minimize the severity of becoming sick.
One of the jokes I had with my pharmacist when I got a booster shot was that we both thought that getting a COVID-19-vaccination will stop you getting it. It has the potential to prevent the life-threatening, deadly infection from forming in your body. You’ll still get sick. But it’ll be more like a flu that you’ll recover from than getting something like Ebola.
If you look at the whole picture, this is how the gaming theory model surrounding this cat-and-mouse game looks. Is there a limit to how long this mRNA, which has been enhanced with a limited number of vaccine mix-and-match techniques, will work? Is there a point where the virus, which has the entirety of earth DNA’s mutation ability to change, can overcome the arsenal of medical technology we presently possess? What then?
I don’t know that depth of the reserve of this technology base. Nor am I familiar with where its brittle fracture risks are that could lead to a systemic cascading failure of this vital mode of the human race’s survival. Personally, because I care deeply about my survival, it is of great interest to me that you learn more about the relative advantages between bugs and humans.
Living with COVID-related Risk
My ability to accept my humanness is what allows me to practice risk management. It is my belief that the individual must decide what they want and I cannot impose any of those choices upon anyone. Each person is on their own path, finding what will work for them, when it comes time to deal with the consequences of the pandemic.
My reason for taking vaccines is to reduce my risk of getting sick. I acknowledge that COVID-19 will eventually strike me, and it will happen to me no matter how I try. It is just how it is.
That won’t stop me from pursuing a life where I seek out and enjoy the company of fellow humans. My mental well-being is dependent on my contact with other people. In fact, I recognize the importance of being around others and meeting new people. I am willing to adapt to the new reality and accept all of its strange rules. I’ll see beyond these hurdles because that connection in a person’s eyes and the subtle dance of their body language is worth the risk.
This is what makes me want to be human. That’s what struck me most about this week’s meeting. That’s the great American challenge of 2022. We need to overcome the condition that there’s been far too much of people telling others what to do; and far too little helping people learn about the things they need to know to decide for themselves.
It’s a bit like Shakespeare writing sonnets with his friends, trying to find the good in everything. Sonnets refer to poems that Shakespeare wrote in the time of the great plagues. These were when Shakespeare advised his patrons not to give up on life despite the dark clouds hanging over it. They made me wonder how it felt in such a depressing world.
We all remember what those cloudy, dark feeling was like. So, here’s my sonnet for the beginning of 2022.
Do not be afraid of the storms. We all get rain.
Losing our humanity is the greatest loss.
It is not possible to take that away by resigning to your tears.
Find the smiles even in darkness.
Be aware of the humanity around you.
They can’t hide if our eyes are closed.
We wish you a happy new year!
About Post Author
