Here we go again…

It’s been a positive start to 2022! Every other person I called to wish for new year had tested positive in Bombay, Goa, Toronto, Sydney, San Diego, and Stellebosch! Most had symptoms, with varying degrees of fever, coughs, colds, aches and exhaustion. A few had no symptoms. All were doubly vaccinated, some had three (booster), and four vaccine shots (vaccinated in India and another country).

Were all these breakthrough infections? Or are the variants now avoiding our immunity? In continuing with my data gathering of anecdotal observations for my PhD in Covidology, I can confirm that it continues to be a shit show. No one knows. People with symptoms consistently test negative and those without, test positive. I am not even getting into percentages of breakthroughs, delta vs omicron, vaccinated vs unvaccinated, hospitalisations of unvaccinated vs vaccinated, children, and all the other gory facts and figures. I am sticking to my qualitative data collection. Everywhere on TV, on social media and in real life, everyone has it. Definitely the trend for 2022. At least this time we are not buying toilet paper and baking banana and sour dough bread but playing Wordle instead. However, the let’s just get it and get over with it trend is not a good new year plan!

I have a very heavy head, blocked nose and ear, weird tummy, a fever for five days (101–102–100 - 99+), and now a slight, dry, cough. I tested negative. I am taking antibiotics and antihistamines, as I am sure (and the ENT confirms) that it is my infected sinus. I have basically been in bed for the last week because I am too sick to go anywhere. This is my own case for my study, I tested positive in April 21 with no symptoms and negative in January 22 with symptoms. Do I have Delta? Omicron? Deltacron? Flurona? Flu or sinusitis?

So here we are in 2022, still clueless about what this virus is upto. It’s all still Greek! I wonder how many Greek alphabets there are in total and if we will run out soon? So many tests, so many inaccuracies, so many variants, so many theories (as with all things Covid, for every single theory there are ten counter theories debunking it). So many more covid doctorates from the university of social media especially WhatsApp here in India, so many treatments and drugs. Each more controversial, experimental and expensive than the previous round! After ivermectin and remdesivir there is now a monoclonal antibody cocktail (apparently originally taken by Trump to shorten the illness!) that is the flavour of this season! Everyone seems to want a shot!

Again, cancelled plans. Dreams on hold. Families separated. Industries, lives and livelihoods all decimated.

Omicron we are now assured is more contagious but less dangerous. There are not enough tests to even confirm the real numbers. Most people with manageable symptoms are doing home tests and asymptomatic people have now been advised not to test, just isolate and mask for five to seven days. The system doesn’t have tests or people to take the tests anymore. Everyone is sick. However hopefully, fewer hospital and ICU admissions and deaths. Just so many, many sick people all over the world, that health care systems and essential services are breaking down all over again.

Lockdowns, quarantines and curfews. Again.

Just when I thought life was beginning to go back to normal and I was considering it maybe time to stop eating cake and drinking gin everyday to cure my pandemic blues. But no such luck. Here we go again!

I am not sure how effective or ineffective lockdowns are. Too many livelihoods suffer. Scientists don’t seem to endorse them but they make politicians look like they are doing something. As always, too little, too late. Scientists also feel schools should close last and open first but here it is the opposite.

Teachers, who to me, are the true unsung heroes of this pandemic, (they had to innovate overnight in March 2020, and have since become tech gurus). They are all now working doubly hard, if that’s even humanly possible, to teach in a hybrid form (both in person and online). So much teacher burnout across the world.

The biggest tragedy in India is schools staying closed. Read this sad and well researched article on the pandemic dropouts in India. End 2021, High schools and colleges had just reluctantly opened up, so older kids were slowly getting some kind of campus life, if they chose to. These have again had to quickly shut down with rising numbers. There had also been a glimmer of hope in November 2021 about the possibility of younger kids going back to school in the new year, if everyone in the school was vaccinated. These little kids have already spent two years of their young lives never entering a school or meeting their friends just staring at a screen. (Only those that could afford one of course!) That hope is lost for now too.

While schools have remained closed for almost two years, elections are being held on schedule in five states across India in February. Goa goes to the polls on February 14th. Campaigning is a fever peak. I’m motion sick trying to keep up with the candidates jumping ship moving from one party to the other, before the elctions. Not sure what will happen after! There are mobs of campaigners walking down my street everyday. Everyday a new party and candidate. Covid protocols not withstanding

The last time I blogged was May 2021, when India was at the peak of the second wave. The horrors of that nightmare still haunt us. We got through the last six months trying to live a little. Most got vaccinated. Many returned to work in some sort of hybrid form (a few times a week). Some never left home (Older folks, those with compromised immune systems, severe comorbidities, job losses, mental health breakdowns), some went back to work everyday. Too many are living in fear, struggling to get from day to day. I just read that we are now suffering from cave syndrome.

Most things still don’t make any sense about this pandemic, other than something I read that said the three Ps who want to keep it going — politics, pharma and the press. It is big business for them!

We hoped we could dodge the third wave with vaccinations. India finally launched it’s third booster vaccinations for frontline workers and folks over 60 with co morbidities. Here we go again.

Are they even working or are the variants immune to them? Again, till the whole world is vaccinated, there will be mutations. Will they bring equality? The variants seem to be identified from under vaccinated or unvaccinated countries. India got the credit or blame for Delta and South Africa for Omicron. While so many poor countries remain with no access to the vaccine, let’s hope the mutations get milder and soon Covid is just a regular flu, so we don’t need to keep boostering, isolating and living in fear of another wave and an even deadlier or contagious mutation or variant of concern.

Two terms in our growing vocabulary of pandemic jargon that we have heard bandied around over the last two years are endemic and herd immunity. Whatever they are, whoever they are and wherever they are, I hope they get here sooner rather than later. More of them and less of those Greek alphabets please!

Across the world, it’s been a shaky start... Happy 2022… it can only get better…