2020 will be etched in our history as a year of long-awaited ambitions that were profoundly altered by Covid-19. Our vocabulary was supposed to be full of terms like “developed-country status”, “high-income economy” and “towering Malaysians”. Instead, we repeated phrases like “flattening the curve”, “physical distancing” and “movement control order” (MCO).
That is because Covid-19 is a national trauma of unprecedented proportions. It will set back Malaysia’s national development, educational achievements and economic growth for years. When the final toll is calculated, we are likely to see worse inequality, lost productivity and a scarred collective national psyche. There are no gentle ways to describe its impact on lives, emotions and the bonds that hold individuals and societies together, but we can still draw strength and three lessons from the bleakness of 2020.