The year 2022 came in stumbling and reeling from Covid. It staggered on stumbling and reeling dogged by another new variant dragged over from the previous year. We struggled with the ambivalence of Omicron. It was not as bad they said but it was still worse. You won’t get as sick as with other variants but you are more likely to get sick. It was easier to catch. Seems like they wanted us to celebrate but there is nothing to celebrate about Covid-19. We do not want to catch it at all. We don’t want to be sick at all. don’t tell us about being less sick.
Well we won’t get as sick but the booster was necessary, advisable even, for the less likely to make you sick Omicron. So a third dose was to be taken. And we were even being prepared for a fourth dose or second booster. The future seemed an interminable experience of a vaccination without an exit strategy. How many shots will one person have to take to fight this one virus. The vaccine suppliers were happy to suggest and to supply more boosters of course. Great business model. Create up-selling demand.
With the adults locked into the booster, the momentum gathered to include the children. This started with fifteen year olds to 18 year olds. As 2022 progressed, the age limits broadened to include downwards to 11 year olds. High schoolers basically were the targets. The recent information is that the vaccine is safe for children aged 6 months to 5 years. Parents and governments wanted schools to reopen and schools are essentially mass gatherings and possibly mass infection and incubation sites. Will these children have to get boosters too? Did anyone answer that? We will have to wait and hear.
By this time the economies were shrieking for attention. So the getting back to normal agenda was implemented. No more hiding from this virus. We will be facing it head on and full face too. No more mandatory masks. Open up the businesses. Open up the schools and daycare centres. We had to take the consequences but we have had less deaths. A lot of people have been vaccinated and boostered. Let’s try our own social and scientific experiment. We already did the early phase of lock in and lockdown. Now it is time to open up.
That strategy faced criticism of course and was accompanied by fears. Fortunately for the proponents the attention of the world was diverted from Covid-19 when Russia invaded Ukraine. Instead of numbers of infections the statistics in the news were the millions of Ukrainian refugees crowding railway stations trying to flee the attacks on their homes. The deaths being counted were casualties of war. A country against country war. The personalities on the screens were political leaders – heads of State and of countries, generals and pundits of violent conflicts not health officials.
Prices of goods, including houses, and the cost of living are the economic news we follow. How the war is affecting supplies and prices is the new concern. We now watch each day the rising price of petrol and listen to hear about possible shortages of grain. Strange how easily our focus can shift to new concerns.
The vaccines for children is not as pressing as the shortage of baby formula which is not caused by the war, nor by the pandemic. Of course the Covid 19 virus is still active. Some countries are reporting fourth and fifth waves. But that news no longer screams at us. We have been going back to the office, going back to school and best of all going back outside of our countries on holidays.
But vacationers had better move swiftly to enjoy a trip overseas. There is a new virus in town – monkeypox. Here we go again and it is still 2022.