Entering a new year with scars of Covid-19
A healthcare worker receives a dose of a Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine at Messe Wien Congress Center, which has been set up as a coronavirus disease vaccination centre, in Vienna, Austria February 7, 2021. REUTERS/Lisi Niesner
This is my last contribution to Daily Voice for 2021. The next time you hear from me will be on 3 January 2022.
So I want to take this opportunity to reflect on our crazy times, wish you Godspeed and to assure you that things will get better. It has been the most challenging two years in living memory.
Covid-19 brought with it painful loss and stagnation, grinding our dreams to a screeching halt, making the uncertainty and anxiety almost palpable, and raising stress levels for the majority of people.
But its worse legacy will be the conflict it stirred, how it was able to rip our social fabric to shreds, leaving painful division and disunity in its wake.
We will get over the losses we suffered, but I fear we may never get over the deep rifts that have developed amongst relatives, friends, neighbours and colleagues.
Some statisticians reckon that, despite the tidal wave that is the Omicron variant – 2022 is likely the year in which we will see the back of the Coronavirus.
It’s either going to mutate itself into benign oblivion, or become an endemic by the end of the new year.
Hopefully it will soon become as much of a distant memory as Y2K, Mad Cow Disease, Bird Flu and Day Zero.
But we still have other challenges to deal with.
For starters, there’s the petrol price and electricity tariffs, but somehow I feel those will be a breeze considering what we have been through. For now, I wish you a peaceful and circumspect holiday season, a blessed Christmas, safe fellowship and a new year that is filled with promise.
May your coffee be strong, your avocado pips be small and your chops be braaied to perfection.