This post is a tribute to the scientists – the silent, unspoken heroes of this pandemic. Because without them, there would be no cure.👩🔬👩💻
** Highly recommended to be read whilst listening to ‘In the air tonight’ by Phil Collins.**
My dearest Science,
I have been thinking of you for a while.
This pandemic has turned lives and values inside out – where survival instincts dominate within individuals (hence the hoarding of toilet rolls and dried goods)- but also for the sake of the species. It is a weird time though, where everyone feels owed from doing their part in silence out of harm’s way, though simultaneously indebted to the generosity of those that are keeping humans safe. The forces have gathered people in to clapping in social media groups – thanking the ‘real workers’, the doctors and nurses, the food and public services, and the military for putting themselves at risk for the community. We need these humans to support the equilibrium and minimize death rate. I still don’t feel safe though with this alone, as I have no idea how long we will be living like this.
But I think it is also very important to mention you, and appreciate the very people at the heart of curing this pandemic. Here where you often take form in the thoughts of lab scientists, often unseen of their efforts by the general public. You often work days and nights, and I often worry since you are also the ones who knowingly put yourselves at risk. I also want YOU to be safe, and you to have what you need. You need to do this to inspect the pathogen closely, to see what is going on with this virus – foreheads marked from goggles and coffee stained headaches from interrogation through wet lab and coding.
I know why you do this, since this is the only way to develop therapies and in turn save lives. I see your silent and humanist graft, and progressive research efforts to develop vaccine therapies and prevent deaths, the overloading of the healthcare systems, and to help cure the very thing that has caused havoc. To re-establish the equilibrium we once knew and called home. But within this time of quarantine, I actually need you more than ever, since you are my home.
A cure doesn’t magically come out of nowhere, as if science took form as a magic black box. A form of technicality detached from everyday thought only to be dismissed for others to fix. But if it wasn’t for the researchers, then this pandemic would not have any cure in sight where months would turn into years – where only the process of natural selection would be our hope in eliminating the virus. We need these scientist humans to cure the pandemic.
As much as people often attribute your efforts as a dismissed technicality, I want you to know that we literally couldn’t live without you.
I could write to you, sing to you, and draw you like one of ‘Jack Dawson’s’ french girls, to keep you present in my days. I know visualizing you in person is no longer an option currently, but to make you human and your light visible to others, I need to find another way.
So, science, if you are so important and ever present in my work and thoughts, let me see our journey, to remind me and show others what we have been through. After all, if you are essential to human survival- then what do you actually look like?
Ever mine, ever thine, ever ours ❤
Camilla Pang
P.s Selfies are always appreciated.
The Corona Diaries 