Every year, we make plans and promises and express wishes and dreams. In 2020, a year that terribly marked by the Covid-19 pandemic and its brutal effects on the economy and society, we promised that we would be better persons. We watched or joined waves of solidarity. When were moved by the images of the remarkable efforts of healthcare professionals in their attempt to save infected citizens in intensive care at hospitals, in an almost unreal scenario. We met workers and entrepreneurs in the fields of culture, restaurants, tourism and commerce or the economy in general who are losing their business and jobs. We watched, on the streets and in the statistics, the increase in the number of new poor, especially the so-called ashamed poverty.

At the beginning of the pandemic, people sang songs on the balcony or at the window all over Europe, applauded doctors, nurses, nursing assistants and everyone doing their best to save lives in hospitals or in nursing homes. We helped family members, we sought answers to the children’s questions and to the huge perplexities of young people. We followed the public guidelines that in Portugal and in several countries were being disseminated in order to prevent a second wave. We believed that, after this, we would be better citizens, more supportive, less selfish. Some of us believed that everything would be okay. In the spring solidarity, mutual aid and it seemed to have beaten the pandemic and selfishness.

But the second wave came, after the summer. And behold, at the turn of the year, we were already talking about the third wave thanks, to a large extent, to the Christmas lockdown easing. On the verge of the third wave, some behaviours changed for the worse and not everybody realized the importance of following the rules. Even if, at times, we didn’t agree with the content and form of communications from government officials, the General Health Directorate and many experts on the actions needed to contain the pandemic, our social and community duty should be to do everything to reduce the number of fatalities and of people hit by an invisible enemy.

Many of us now doubt that social behaviour, as a result of the pandemic, has improved. In early 2020, we promised to be better while living in society and to respect our fellow citizens. In 2021, in the face of a pandemic scenario that is still there (despite the discovery and progressive administration of the vaccine) and of the revival of the economy, society and culture, we have the community mission to strengthen the spirit of solidarity and optimism in order to win. But we should bear in mind that it will be difficult to maintain social cohesion and the fight for meritocracy with selfishness, populism and demagogies. We must act ethically for a more just and democratic society – but not a blind nor complacent society.

The challenges of the year 2021 and the third decade of the 21st century, which has just began, are too important. Let us choose to build rather than to destroy. Let us choose to create or revive projects and brands, as is the case of Diário de Notícias, the oldest national newspaper of national scope already 156 years old and which returned on December 29th to the newsstands, every day, renovated, stronger and with a simple and clear mission: to inform with truth, independence and rigor. I would also like to congratulate Prémio magazine on its 18th anniversary. It’s coming of age now and was able to resist the crises of the media and economic crises for almost two decades. Long live Prémio magazine!