What if you had never seen a disaster film?

Just for perspective, how many people here have seen at least one disaster film? I'm guessing most of us. If it was Contagion or Outbreak or any number of similar pandemic films, or films about other natural disasters, volcanoes, earthquakes, towering inferno, 9/11, alien invasions - too many to choose from.

We have some kind of imprint in our minds, however vague, of what something like this might look like. The medical professionals in protective gear, people in masks, empty streets, people isolated in their homes, everything closed, ordinary life turning on a dime in to a completely different existence.

And yes, I'm sure when many of us first heard about measures against covid19 it seemed unreal, like a movie, like something out of one of these films or science fiction, but still, we had this idea implanted in our brains that something like this could happen, however highly unlikely.

Now imagine that you had grown up without ever having seen a film. You never saw the news footage of 9/11 or Katerina in New Orleans or virus outbreaks in Africa and China. You may never even have heard of any of those, let alone seen them. You haven't read science fiction or disaster fiction.

In short you don't have that concept already there on the fringes of your awareness, those images, those storylines. That tiny bit of preparedness other people have absorbed from popular culture and the odd news report, even if they weren't actively following Bill Gates' TED talk on the subject or other warnings from epidemiologists and other scientists which have from time to time made the news.

Then boom, one day you are told that plague has struck, everyone has to go in to lockdown in their homes, no more shul, no more big weddings or funerals, no guests, no social gatherings, businesses and schools must close. How would you respond? It is so wild, so utterly out there that your response would likely be disbelief, suspicion, it makes no sense.

You wouldn't have that modicum of preparedness, nothing to equip you with the idea that this was it, fiction come to life, an epidemic from a distant corner of the globe landed right here at home. You wouldn't have that awareness to help you absorb the facts and adjust your understanding of reality.

I am quite sure that this has affected how the most traditional and insular communities have handled this outbreak, why many have been so slow to react, so slow to understand the severity of what is happening.

And yes, we may all yet suffer the consequences, but I think it's important that we try to put ourselves in their shoes and understand why they have responded as they have, and in doing so find constructive and effective ways to change their behaviour and in doing so protect and save us all.