2020 was a special year, not to say a difficult year, with the Covid-19 pandemic. January 2021, I joined an English online club. And the first topic was to talk about the past year and what to expect in 2021.

The 2 questions asked by the club organizers :

“Why should you be grateful to last year? And what are you looking forward to this new year?“

And here is my reflection by that time :

Times magazine has declared 2020 the worst year ever in its last cover. Indeed, 2020 has been a very challenging and difficult year for everyone around the world, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, all sanitary, economic, social restrictions due to the pandemic, but also sad events such as George Floyd killing, Beirut explosion, the flood in the center of Vietnam, and several iconic figures’ death.

However, there still are some reasons that make 2020 a special year that we should be grateful to.

First, from the scientific point of view, the sanitary crisis of Covid-19 has accelerated research progress. Money, time, and human resources have been massively invested in research. Worldwide scientists, researchers, medical staff are encouraged to collaborate together to provide and share data, understandings about the virus, and solutions to reduce its impacts. Above all, the vaccin delivery process has been exceptionally accelerated : we are releasing a dozen of different brands of Covid-19 vaccin within a year, something that normally would take a decade to do.

Second, the crisis has raised many structural questions in every aspects of our system. For instance, as the borders are exceptionally closed due to the sanitary crisis, we have realized how globalized the world has become, and how our live has changed thanks to the intensive connections between countries. This critical situation has also emphasized the particularities, the strengths and weaknesses of each nation. Let’s take France as an example, the crisis has shown the lack of healthcare materials, but also proven the importance of universal healthcare system. We also see the differences between federal countries like the US or Germany where local/federal governance has more power on day-to-day life than the central authority and a country like France where the President has the ultimate power. We also see the differences between collectivist culture like Vietnam where common interest is way more important than individual privacy and individualist culture like France where the population tends to be very skeptical and criticize all top-bottom decisions.

Last year was also a year of ecologism promotion : with the lockdown, the air pollution was reduced, we consume less, industrial activities slowing down lets the nature recover a little bit.

In a word, 2020 gave us a chance to meditate on the world and the future than we are building for the next generations.

Finally, I think that for most of us, 2020 has been an occasion to re-evaluate our priorities, our lifestyle and our values. This unprecedented situation constrains us to concentrate on the most important things, people and also to get back to the basics. For many of us, we had to prioritize our relationships, we spent more time at home, on cooking, on daily activities, and we spent more time with our family.

2021 has begun. I hope this year to be a brighter year. I hope that the vaccination will put an end to the sanitary crisis and we can go back to the normal life. Moreover, I hope that afterward thanks to the savings and the optimism of the population, the economy will be recovered and even go stronger. I also hope that the we will learn from this experience, that the French government will invest more in the healthcare system, that the European Union will be more united ; and thanks to Joe Biden, the relationships between the US and other countries will be more pacific, because I think that it’s important for the world peace. And for Vietnam, I hope that the country will continue to contain the virus and will take advantage of its sanitary success to develop its economy.