Pan-nesia: An Economic Strategy or Trauma Response?

Why we don’t talk about, or can’t even remember the pandemic.

Illustrations by Grace McKenna

Six years on, it's hard to imagine that not so long ago everyday life looked vastly different for every single person you know. No matter where you lived in the world, if you were alive during the pandemic, the chances are that you have at least one memory of it.  Maybe something you dip into anecdotally if ever someone brings up the notion of being ‘bored’, on ‘house arrest’, or watching a little too much Netflix.

So why does no one really talk about it?

And why can a period stretching almost two years be distilled down to just a few core snippets in most of our minds?

This week for the Cultured Resident, we address the discussions we’re NOT having and, more importantly, why?

There are two main potential theories about this that I would like to explore:

1. Our self-initiated ‘Voldemortisation’ of Covid, or

2.  If this is a purposefully inscribed strategy by the nation's influential powers to stop          us becoming so risk-averse that we all just stay inside, thus breeding economic downfall.

Apart from the everyday monotony, the pandemic caused unprecedented devastation on a worldwide scale. As well as the daily rising death count from Covid itself, rates of anxiety and depression rose by 25% as an inevitable result of not only these grim realities, but also being isolated from many of our loved ones, and having  our routines stripped away from our daily lives. The science is there to corroborate this as well, with The Global Centre for Health Security showing that due to the ‘Groundhog-day-like’ stretches of time, our brains were less likely to form as many new memories and ultimately retain them. It is also a well-known psychological phenomenon that when times are hard and we suffer trauma, oftentimes the brain will ‘black out’ these periods as a means of protecting us - much like when mothers cannot recall the pain of labour, for example. Perhaps many of us are experiencing a kind of collective trauma response: a protective amnesia that stops us recalling the daily uncertainty, loneliness, and dread that living in Covid times brought to the majority. 

Another possibility is that we are scared of the awkwardness that these kinds of conversations might bring about. With the tricky liminality of having so much at stake in terms of health, and maybe feeling some amount of distance if you didn't feel as vulnerable to Covid, the kind of ‘Cov-ettiquette’ and ethics that we as individuals might have followed during the pandemic could still stand as a point of contention. Questions like “what kind of pandemic survivor were you?”, a stringent rule follower, or one with more eye for the nuances and particular circumstances that might apply to an isolated situation? With pressing media stances, these sorts of moral triggers are enough to divide even the most stable of friendship groups. Perhaps we don't want to find out how our friends we have met since the pandemic handled things during that time. 

Personally, I reflected upon why I might shy away from initiating pandemic-talk in my day to day; falling upon the conclusion that even the smallest references feel like bringing about some kind of dark omen that seems right out of a fantasy book - though this was a reality that we all shared. On one hand, Covid is a powerfully uniting collective experience on the grounds that it was universally lived, with no one able to escape. Is there the fear that by talking about it we acknowledge the very real possibility that with more and more encroachment on the natural world, this kind of devastation could plausibly occur again within our lifetimes?

It is possible, however, that this avoidance goes beyond ourselves, with a noticeable dearth in media reporting that involves Covid, and no real mention of it from government officials beyond when measures were gradually lifted in the summer of 2021. As we know from the risky ‘Eat Out to Help Out’ scheme, the government can conveniently forget about the risks of the pandemic, even in the muggy midst of it. If we become too aware of the potential for spreading contagious diseases such as the flu, even aside from Covid, this could compound an already increasingly isolated nation, discouraging us from stepping outside of our homes to spend time and money in mingling environments. Better to brush it under the rug than risk a public fear when Covid is (mostly) behind us. 

So, why exactly does this matter?

An article from Wired discussing the potential origins of Covid found that, contrary to the speculations about a lab-generated virus causing the pandemic, the infection really did seem to originate in the wet markets of Wuhan, due to the contamination between dead and alive animals, as well as humans. Through extensive tracing research, discourse, and detective work, the article helped to disprove ideas of malicious intent regarding Covid’s origins, as well as bringing about suggestions for how we might prevent another pandemic from happening again. It is only through dredging up Covid information and addressing it head-on that we can make a better plan of regulation, care, and prevention for the future. 

Many people draw comparisons between the Covid-19 pandemic and the earlier outbreak of the Spanish flu, after which there seemed to be a consensus of ‘collective forgetting’ - viewing the pandemic like a series of individual tragedies rather than a widespread epidemic. This time, we need to learn from the event rather than erase it, for how can we shape the future while trying to forget the past?

On a smaller scale, what can we learn from our ‘Covid selves’? The vast majority of us are not policymakers, so have little power over the kind of widespread prevention measures that our nation might employ. Instead, then, it is helpful to engage in constructive debate about our own practices, and how our own handling of the pandemic might have impacted our physical and mental health. Whatever kind of ‘pandemic-er’ you were, take ownership of it and grow beyond the fearful, blindsided beings we were in early 2020.