Monday was the fourth anniversary of the World Health Organization’s declaration of the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic. Most people probably didn’t remember the date.

The pandemic dominated our lives for three years, but most of us haven’t thought too much about COVID during the past 12 months. Technically the pandemic continues, but the death toll is down so we ignore it.

Looking back in this space, I first wrote about COVID a few days before the WHO made its pronouncement. It would dominate my posts for the next couple of years.

There were no vaccines then of course. There was a lot of conflicting information on how best to deal with the spread of the virus. Four years later, there still is.

My first post on the topic reflected that. I wrote “there’s not much chance of catching the disease in rural Germany.” I was wrong. Already a couple of friends had had it, though we thought it was the flu. And before the month was out, my landlord would be at death’s door with a bad case of what the Germans called coronavirus. (He did recover.)

My first post on the topic was focused on hoarding. A few days later I wrote about the cancellation of the hockey season, followed the next day by ruminations on how all the companies I di business with were trying to tell me they had my wellbeing at heart.

A quick scan reveal that I talked about COVID-19 in a dozen posts in March 2020. That’s a lot on one topic, but, as you remember, it was dominating our lives. Four years later though, I wonder what we learned, if anything?

I wrote a fair amount about the balance (or lack thereof) between individual and group rights in a pandemic. I still think governments panicked and placed unreasonable restrictions on the populace, and they still haven’t been held accountable for their overreach. The lack of outcry leaves me worried about future attempts by governments to restrict individual freedom and liberty.

Four years later we are still processing the effects of the pandemic on our society. It will take years to do a proper post-mortem.

One thing we did learn is that we as a society are woefully unprepared for such a crisis. Learning that doesn’t mean that anything has been done to make us better prepared for the next pandemic. And there is always a next one.

We the people need to be pushing our leaders to think about a future that the experts say is coming, even if they can’t give an exact date. How will we deal with the next pandemic? Will we shut down the world, trample on people’s rights and hope for the best?

Or is there a better way?

Any suggestions?