What If You Had to Live Through 2020 All Over Again?

6 min read

2020 has been one of the worst years in human history. It’s been strange, confusing, and often terrifying. But what if when the clock strikes midnight on December 31st, instead of going to 2021, it went back to January 1st,

2020? Now you’d have to live through the year all over again. How could living through 2020 again change the future? Would you be able to prevent any events from happening? And could this save the world?

It’s no secret that 2020 is one of the worst years in human history, mainly because of COVID-19. But even without that, this year still had a lot of terrible and strange
things happen. So what if the world went back to January 1st, 2020? How would we be able to change it? Well, we have a long year ahead of us, so we better get started.

JANUARY

2020 would begin with a bang. And I mean that literally. On January 2nd, Donald Trump ordered a drone strike that killed Iranian General Qassem Soleimani. And with this, there was the threat of World War 3. Now the first time this happened, you were probably panicking. But now, you can be a bit calmer knowing that the world won’t be going to war. 2020 has way more tricks up its sleeve.

Not only that, but during this month, Australia would be having some of the worst wildfires ever recorded. Forty-five million acres of land would be destroyed, affecting over one billion animals in the wild. Unfortunately, this would be pretty difficult to prevent as most of these wildfires are caused by the extremely dry climate. But you could potentially evacuate certain areas to help animals as well as people. And on top of all that, Brexit would be made official. And the first COVID death would be reported. Phew, that was a long month.

FEBRUARY

Now luckily, this month wouldn’t be as crazy. The only thing of note that happened was the President of the United States getting impeached. Yeah, I bet you forgot that even happened. That’s how crazy this year has been. And hopefully, during this month, everyone would start wearing a mask and start socially distancing since we all know what’s coming.

MARCH

Italy entered lockdown. The world is starting to panic due to COVID-19. With hindsight, maybe the world would go into lockdown much earlier than we did. And hopefully, we won’t panic-buy toilet paper again. That was embarrassing. And with everyone in lockdown, we could expect COVID cases not to be as high and hospitals to not get overwhelmed. Now obviously, this wouldn’t prevent it entirely, but it would help.

APRIL

Now you’re adjusting to the new normal. Everyone is wearing a mask. You’re socially distancing and not seeing your friends very much.

MAY

In early May, murder hornets will have arrived in the United States. There’s really nothing we could do to prevent this, but the thing we could do is stop worrying about them. These hornets kill less than a dozen people a year. Regular hornets kill over 50. And on May 25th, 2020, George Floyd was killed by police, sparking outrage in the United States.

JUNE

Record numbers of protestors flooded the streets in the U.S. and around the world. This was in response to the killings of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd and Ahmad Arbery. It was also for the countless other black people who have been murdered, attacked, or harmed by police brutality and hate crimes. Although having the foresight for what would happen to these people could potentially save them, it still wouldn’t prevent countless other crimes from happening. America’s problems with race occurred long before 2020.

JULY

More protests against police brutality and more COVID-19 cases. And this was a calm month for 2020.

AUGUST

Wildfires in the United States would reach an all-time high. There were twenty-eight major fires in California, burning over 16,000 sq km (6,200 square miles) of land. The total number of deaths was 31, along with hundreds of homes destroyed. Preventing all these fires would be impossible. But we could stop some of the ones started by humans.

But regardless, we’d be able to evacuate homes and prepare firefighters. This would hopefully prevent people from dying and maybe even losing their homes. But something we could potentially prevent? The massive explosion that happened in Beirut, Lebanon. It was caused by ammonium nitrate stored at the city’s port. If people knew ahead of time
that this was about to happen, maybe they’d be able to prevent it.

SEPTEMBER

Donald Trump would continue his Trump rallies. And let’s be honest, even in a 2020 redo, attendees would still ignore social distancing, masks, and other safety precautions.

OCTOBER

Donald Trump has contracted COVID-19. Now you might be thinking, aren’t we starting this year over again? So wouldn’t he know better? Well, not exactly. Donald Trump was well aware of the dangers of COVID-19 in January. He didn’t listen to science. And knowing how infectious COVID-19 is, it’s likely he’d still get it.

NOVEMBER

Joe Biden is elected the 46th President of the United States. Along with his running mate Kamala Harris, Biden made history by having the most votes for a U.S. president-elect ever. Hopefully, living through it a second time, election deniers will know that Joe Biden didn’t rig the election.

DECEMBER

The U.K. has approved the first COVID-19 vaccine to be distributed around the world. Although this vaccine is new, it has a 95% success rate. If all goes according to plan, this would prevent us from getting COVID-19. And after the vaccine is widely accessible, we could all maybe go back to normal again. And maybe this vaccine could’ve come out much sooner, given the knowledge we’ve gained.

But for better and for worse, we won’t get a do-over of this year. We’ll just have to keep moving forward into 2021. But on the bright side, with all we’ve learned this year about viruses, social distancing, social issues, and so much more, we can go into the new year stronger than ever. So here’s hoping 2021 is a lot less “interesting” than 2020.