The pandemic has ended

Muse #467 - long live the pandemic

Photo by Jay Clark on Unsplash

My in-laws traveled to India today. And we went to the Toronto airport to send them away. And the airport was crowded. As crowded as crowded can be. No sign of the pandemic. Except for the fact that people were masked to a varying degree. If one had not got the virus this was a surefire way of getting it. Without a doubt.

The virus itself has spread well. In North America predictions for people who have got COVID at least once range from 60 to 90%. So, it seems like when rather than if. And hopefully, their chances, if they do get it, are better due to the fact that they have both got 4 doses of the mRNA vaccine - a mix of Pfizer and Moderna.

Words like pandemic and endemic are bandied about with most mass-scale testing going out the window. The extensive spread plus high levels of vaccination (at least here in Canada being above 95% with two doses) might contribute to this confidence. Unlike the US which has been struggling to get the vaccination levels to around 65%.

I wrote about my predictions a year back that we would not see a light at the end of the tunnel until 2024. And I still stand by that prediction as the parameters have not really changed, and I have written about these earlier than my previous predictions.

Human memories are short. And we forget the fact that the virus is neither following our news nor our sentiments. The virus is sure going to evolve the way it evolves. Working on variants and mutations that solve both the efficacy problem as well as the supply chain and distribution problems. And seeing what is happening in China, we have really not gotten away from it. Not by a long shot.

So after survival of over 28 months since the pandemic started, I am still waiting for the virus, fingers crossed about the when rather than the if. And not knowing how many times or cycles of the infection I would eventually go through.