2021 dawned with the realisation that the new year might not be that much different from the last. Just as days, weeks and months seemed to merge during this planetary pandemic, so, too, did laps around the sun.
In March, the desperate scenes in those overcrowded hospitals in India were as jolting as the Dantean images from northern Italy at the start of the pandemic. They reminded us that the virus comes in waves. That the threat is ever-changing. That mutations can be more infectious and deadly. The Delta variant presented COVID-19 in its most virulent form yet, a poison cloud that cast an all-pervading shadow.
Mass vaccinations, if not marking an end point of the pandemic, at least showed there was an escape route. And the quicker people got jabbed, the faster their cities opened up. I was in New York, the one-time epicentre of the pandemic, when rules for the double-vaccinated were relaxed. We could see people smile again. We were unmuffled and unmuted. Maskless faces, hitherto a symbol of defiance, became a sign of compliance. When I overheard one New Yorker tell another New Yorker to “go f...
But the sluggishness of the Australian vaccine rollout represented the gravest act of national self-harm. Lives and livelihoods were needlessly lost. Monotonous months of lockdown could have been avoided. Seeing shopping centres festooned with Christmas decorations when we emerged from confinement was a reminder of seasons squandered.A way out from the pandemic is not the same thing, of course, as a pathway back to normalcy. Just consider the changes that have overtaken the world of work.
GoodWeekendMag So true
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