How a pandemic has changed us

The new normal is taking a life of its own, including potentially making us less sociable human beings.

I USED to joke about Americans’ obsession with numbers in sports. Anyone following a National Basketball Association (NBA) game will be bombarded with statistics unthinkable in most other games.

You will be reminded of scores and rebounds, which are tracked with precision as part of a complex analytics regime.

Perhaps the number-crazy commentaries added to the heightened thrill of an otherwise unspectacular game of exceptionally burly athletes trying to shove the ball into the loop without really making contact with each other.

Like many out there, I consider myself an“innumerate”.

Innumeracy is a condition where one is unable to deal comfortably with the fundamental notions of numbers and chance. In 1988, mathematician John Allen Paulos made famous the concept in his insightful and thought-provoking book, Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences.

Like illiteracy which deals with words, innumeracy deals with numbers.

Most of us are not number-crunchers and we don’t really see the world in a quantitative way. We deal with numbers only when we pay bills, worrying about income tax or spending on holidays. Or when we talk about population and crimes.

But the Covid-19 pandemic is changing all that. We are more aware of the need for numbers and statistics. Every day we are bombarded by facts and figures provided by Senior Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob and Health director-general Datuk Seri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.

They are the faces of our crisis in fighting the scourge. For the last few months, they have been facing the nation almost every day regaling us with hopes, worries and despair in fighting Covid-19.

Their presence in many ways have relegated fake news spread by irresponsible people about the pandemic to nothing more than a cesspool of nonsense.

The management of public relations involving the pandemic has been nothing less than stellar with these two gentlemen in charge. Both have their strong points: Ismail Sabri, the politician talks about the overview of the strategy and campaigns while Noor Hisham the bureaucrat provides the facts and statistics on what is happening daily on the Covid-19 front.

Both came out strongly harping on statistics. Ismail Sabri has even the minutest details on hand – how many cars were stopped at roadblocks all over the country, how many were turned back for trying to sneak home for Hari Raya and how many were charged for flouting the movement control order (MCO).

Dr Noor Hisham is the darling of the media and the people. Like Ismail Sabri, his no-nonsense and professional approach endears him to all. His numbers are carefully watched and analysed. Netizens even came out with their own charts based on his statistics to supplement. I have never seen that kind of interest in numbers among the populace. But then, this is no ordinary crisis. Numbers matter.

In many countries, the number of people affected is still a major concern. There are three times more Americans who are dead because of Covid-19 than the total number of its soldiers killed in the entire Vietnam War. The escalation of riots now in major US cities as the result of George Floyd’s death

might be another time bomb to spread the disease. Advanced countries in Europe are not spared. Now the pandemic is spreading like

wildfire in Latin American countries.

The pandemic has changed the way we live and interact perhaps for many more years to come. The notion of “new normal” is taking a life of its own. We are in an “altered state” mode. We have become less sociable humans. Proximity is now dreaded. We are accustoming ourselves to new realities. Of the many jokes on social media, the one about a Bangladeshi security guard now taking the temperature of a doctor entering a supermarket is laughable but true.

We have been in a “lockdown stage” since March 18. It is remarkable how Malaysians adapt to the MCO. It wasn’t easy. We have never experienced anything like this. Even during the implementation of the Emergency Ordinance after the May 13 incident, curfews were limited to certain areas.

The MCO involved the whole nation. We have eased some of the restrictions but the worry is still there. And we have to deal with the aftermath, economically.

It is a humbling experience for all of us. The history of humanity has to be rewritten, for despite our proud technological advancements we are proven to be merely mortals, vulnerable and exposed.

Life is a long lesson in humility, someone famously said. In post-

Covid-19 time, it takes a whole new meaning to the phrase.

Johan Jaaffar was a journalist, editor and for some years chairman of a media company, and is passionate about all things literature and the arts. And a diehard rugby fan. The views expressed here are entirely his own.