Unlike 20/20 vision, a term used to express normal visual acuity or perfect vision - the clarity or sharpness of vision measured at a distance of 20 feet; “hindsight is 20/20,” however, has an altogether different connotation.
“Hindsight is 20/20” is a proverb that means it is easy to understand something after it has already happened. The expression “hindsight is 20/20” is usually said in answer to an admonishment that the person should have known something would happen. The word hindsight refers to looking back or reflecting on things in the past. So, when we look back on situations in the past, we see things clearly that were not clear to us then.
People who are able to look back on the past and understand what happened have hindsight 20/20.
COVID-19 is a case-in-point. Strange but true, “hindsight is 20/20” a proverb coined a century ago is sounding relevant today - in the year 2020. Incredible! Is it a mere coincidence or is there a design to it? Only time will prove.
"The Art of War" by Sun Tzu, the Chinese general, military strategist, writer and philosopher teaches us to rely not on the likelihood of the enemy's not coming, but on our own readiness to receive him; not on the chance of his not attacking, but rather on the fact that we have made our position unassailable.
COVID-19 and the other past viruses are similar in many ways. They have the same initial symptoms, are respiratory illnesses caused by coronaviruses, and are believed to have originated in birds, jumping to humans via an intermediate animal host that triggers the contagion; as is the case with the current COVID-19 pandemic. Incidentally, the initial preventative and containment measures, in the absence of a suitable vaccine, are the same e.g. face masks, social distancing, hygiene and adoption of technology offering touchless and contactless interactions.
A time for reflection:
To each there comes in their lifetime a special moment when they are figuratively tapped on the shoulder and offered the chance to do a very special thing, unique to them and fitted to their talents. What a tragedy if that moment finds them unqualified or unprepared for that which could have been their finest hour – said Winston Churchill.
The situation ironically, has come knocking at the doorstep of not only the aviation industry, but the world at large and all its people and industries, in the form of COVID-19 pandemic. The underlying or key words in the quotation by Winston Churchill are unprepared and unqualified. It is my strong conviction that we in the aviation industry, by virtue of our expertise, experience and training, are amply qualified to handle any unexpected incidents, accidents, occurrences, situations, eventualities and crisis situations which can tend to become disasters. We were, however, unprepared for this onslaught of gargantuan proportion - a virus that has raced across the globe and triggered unprecedented peace-time lockdowns.
The aviation industry has in the past dealt with viruses of the kind of SARS (2003), H1N1 (2009), MERS (2012) and EVD (2016) which were local or confined to certain countries or regions only. These viruses have affected the aviation industry in the past, but the effects were much less severe. All the viruses are genetically related to the coronavirus responsible for the SARS and other viruses’ outbreak that appeared between 2003 and 2016. While related, each virus was different in its qualitative composition. How did the world not see a new virus, more devastating, coming? We couldn’t be so naïve. With “hindsight is 20/20,” we now see where our strategy went wrong. We could have done better if we were to take the repeatedly occurring incidents in the past as a clarion call to investigate the matter in-depth than to deal each one of them as a fire-fighting exercise or a band-aid quick-fix solution. That precisely is “hindsight is 20/20.”
Why was the world caught unaware of the coming of this virus in the form of a pandemic, a disaster unprecedented in its nature, scale and global outreach; is the moot question. Why did we let the crisis of the past turn into a disaster?
The world’s best health related institutions, epidemiologists, virologists and disease detectives were available then too as they are today – engaged now in doing everything that can been done to find out – first the menace and then the solution.
The entire pharmaceutical industry is chasing the pandemic today. Biotech companies are screening their vast global libraries of medicines to identify potential treatments and have numerous clinical trials underway to test new and existing therapies. They have deployed their dedicated top scientists and investments in new technologies to speed the development of safe and effective vaccines. They are sharing the learnings from clinical trials in real time with the global health regulatory agency the WHO, governments and other companies to advance the development of additional therapies. In parallel they are expanding their unique manufacturing capabilities and sharing available capacity to ramp up production once a successful medicine or vaccine is developed.
Crises and Disasters
There is a very thin line of demarcation between crises and disasters. A disaster is a “crisis with a bad ending.” When a crisis is perceived to have been led to bad consequences, it tends to be a disaster. The difference between a crisis and disaster – depending on its respective severity are, of course, a matter of perception and eventually the resultant destruction or its overall impact.
By all standards of perceptiveness and the gravity of the situation, this COVID-19 phenomenon can be classified as a disaster. Technically defined, a disaster is a natural, man-made, or technological phenomenon resulting in an event of substantial extent causing damage or destruction, loss of life, or drastic change to the environment and consequently impacting the economic, social and cultural fabric of people. This pandemic has done all this and more.
Occurrences like runway incursions, aircraft collisions on ground, fires, aircraft hijacking attempts, terror attack happen at any one of the thousands of airports, around the globe at frequent intervals. They are however, appropriately dealt within the ambit of pre-planned, time-tested and proven Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), Contingency Plans, and Disaster Management Plans (DMP). Such emergency planning measures are the processes of preparing an airport to cope with an emergency occurring at the airport or in its vicinity without a prior indication or at best a short warning. An example of crisis turning into a disaster was averted by advanced preparedness on ground and alertness of all concerned. (See Box).
The object of airport emergency planning is to minimize the effects of an emergency, particularly in respect of saving lives and maintaining aircraft operations. The airport emergency plan sets forth the procedures for coordinating the response of different airport agencies and services – fire fighters, doctors, para-medical staff, security personnel, law and order mechanisms, and those agencies in the surrounding community that could be of assistance in responding to the emergency. This is primarily done to ensure that the crisis situations do not turn into disasters.
Perhaps the other industries including healthcare industry can take a cue from the crisis and disaster related aviation preparedness to upgrade their agendas for unforeseen situations and eventualities, the likes of the current pandemic. There is no guarantee that circumstances like COVID-19 would not reoccur in a different and perhaps an even more severe format as COVID-24, 27 or 30.
My take:
Aviation today is at an inflexion point. The level of uncertainty we’re facing is unprecedented and it’s becoming hard to respond to the crisis. Understanding how pandemics start, and how viruses evolve and move around the world, is critical to managing them in a smart and more effective way. Pieces of the COVID-19 puzzle are still coming together, and it’s possible that scientists will never know exactly how the whole jigsaw looks. But the closer they get, the better they can respond - not only to this pandemic, but also to the next one. I do not wish to sound pessimist, nor overly optimist; but realist.
“We must accept finite disappointment but never lose infinite hope,” said Martin Luther King Jr.
The moral of the story thus is: “hindsight is 20/20; foresight is forever”. We ought to be in the state of preparedness for any eventuality. Way to go!
Inderjit Singh is an ICAO Airport Consultant and former CEO of New Delhi’s IGI airport.
