There are years when they come separately. This year they coincide.
The huge moon in a cloudless sky, which the Jews believe was sent by God to help them escape. Hence Passover celebrated by Jews this week. And of course the Easter triduum for Christians.
Except that for most people we are not celebrating Good Friday and Easter at all because of the Corona crisis. Because for many the celebration is all about processions and statues and church decorations and bell ringing, etc.
Whereas the real significance of these days has nothing to do with the preceding paragraph's paraphernalia.
This is another consequence of the crisis along with fewer cars on the road, less pollution in the air and cleaner rivers and seas.
Coronavirus has also forced us to cut down drastically on social interaction, practically forcing us to interact physically with our immediate family only and on electronic means with anyone not in our house.
Let me immediately qualify this. This social distancing is what we are being asked to do, not what many people are doing. Many are finding this social distancing thing impossibly hard and are becoming quite adept at finding ways out.
This is not an exclusively Maltese problem. In Italy they have discovered a couple in their 70s going round in their camper. Elsewhere police stopped a very old woman who had found reason to go to the shops 11 times in one day.
The difference is that the police over there have the power to stop and inquire as well as to fine people there and then whereas here we seem to rely more on hand-waving and maybe barked orders.
Our methods do not seem to be over-effective judging by the people on the streets, on beaches and in the countryside. Actually, the not-more-than-three rule may be giving people a false sense of security which detracts from the over-arching advice given to do social distancing.
We need to get these people as much as possible out of the streets, beaches and the countryside unless it is strictly necessary for them to be there.
Otherwise we will get a different kind of traffic very soon – the processions of coffins in our streets.
We now have all the information we need from other countries which have seen the pandemic ravage not just the elderly but also the young, the healthy, the ones with a future ahead of them. Even the elderly can perhaps squeeze some more productive years if they steer clear of the virus.
We can thus avoid the mistakes other countries did which they have come to deeply regret.
But people are people all over the world and somehow they keep repeating the same stupid mistakes. Ditto for governments of whatever hue and make. Ditto for supranational organisations such as the European Union.
The world we (as long as we’re still alive) will find once the pandemic is truly over will be a vastly different world from the one we hurriedly left a month or so ago. Those still thinking we will just resume where we left off are simply dreaming.
It will be a vastly poorer world with millions out of a job, collapsed enterprises and broken trade links. The COVID experience has shown us many countries have shredded solidarity and selfishly sought their own interest led by the commander in chief of what used to be the biggest economy in the world which forgot its noble gestures of solidarity through the Marshall Plan, which came to the aid of a broken-down Europe post World War II.
On the other hand we are seeing all around us the green shoots of new ventures and new technologies which may become the new normal. Life continually surprises us with its creativity and inventiveness.
Meanwhile, however, there are all these people to save from famine and death. Even before the pandemic there were famines and deaths in some remote areas, which we did not do much about except grumbling about the boat-people.
Now famine and death will be on our doorsteps unless we switch over to a matrix of solidarity.
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