2020 was a rough year for most people. A lot of memes have been circulating online about how we had California wildfires back in 2020 and this year started with wildfires. There is also concern that a new virus from China, Human Metapneumovirus Virus, is going to cause another lockdown.
According to the CaliFire Incident Archive, 2020 was a record year for the wildfires with nearly 10,000 fires burning 4.2 million acres. Boston University claims that drought and heat waves had some effect on the 2025 California Wildfires even if they weren’t the main cause. The fires are still ongoing.
In 2020 California had wildfires and the current wildfires are causing people to draw parallels between 2020 and 2025. Since the current California Wildfires are still ongoing the damage inflicted isn’t known yet. However, this seems like it’s more of a tragic coincidence rather than foreshadowing us reliving 2020.
During the year 2020 we also had the Covid-19 pandemic where we all had to go into a lockdown. Because of this, people are scared that a new virus in China is going to repeat the lockdown of 2024.
HMPV is similar to Covid, mimicking symptoms of a cold. According to Vaccines Work, “Yet while some people have drawn comparisons with the early days of Covid-19…is unlikely to trigger a new pandemic.” Vaccines Work also mentions HMPV is a respiratory virus that has been around since 2001.
Despite the memes and strange parallels to events that happened in 2020 and are happening now, I don’t think we have to worry about reliving 2020 any time soon. In fact, officials in China are saying the numbers for cases of HMPV have dwindled. As for the fires, there is no evidence that these events are anything but a tragic coincidence.
Though it’s still early in the year, there is no evidence that this year will be 2020 2.0.
Contact the writer: [email protected]