Difficult 2020, uncertain 2021

By Artchil B. Fernandez

 

Reality is always stranger than fantasy. As the world a year ago welcomed 2020 with feast and pomp, nobody (maybe except few infectious disease experts) ever imagined how horrible the year turned out to be.

Who would have thought that a global pandemic will sweep the world in 2020? Not even in the wildest dream of almost everyone had it occurred that the world will be brought to its knees this year. The 1918 Spanish flu pandemic was a faint memory, almost forgotten and unknown to a large portion of the population.

Yet today, people are living in a new, different world. It is a world of many restrictions, lockdowns, virtual classes, conferences and meetings, and economic collapse. Life is under the firm grip of constant fear and anxiety.

Humans are social beings and group life is an essential part of being human. But group life is the first thing to go this year. Cinemas, theatres, and concert halls are closed. Huge football stadiums where tens of thousands used to congregate and wildly cheer are empty. Only a limited number of people are allowed in places of worship. Even family gatherings and small assemblies in communities are strictly regulated and restricted.

Only sick people wear a mask. This was the norm before 2020. Today, masks are an essential part of the human outfit. Wearing a mask when going out is not only necessary it is mandated under threat of penalty. A new mask fashion emerged in 2020. This did not cross the mind of even the most astute fashion observer a year ago.

An eerily deserted street is the most poignant image of 2020. Calling 2020 a difficult year is an understatement. Plans – from personal to group, communal, organizational, and corporate – are turned upside down. Carefully and tediously crafted plans are thrown away and thrashed. Individuals and groups had to hurriedly and instantly re-calibrate their plans or create new ones. Everyone was caught off guard. The Covid-19 pandemic once again reminds humans how unpredictable and uncertain life is on this planet. Things can crumble in an instant.

The phrase “home is where the heart is” assumed an entirely new meaning in 2020. Work from home is the new norm and home school or schooling from home has a new definition. People are advised to stay at home as much as possible with children and senior citizens prohibited from going out or venturing out of their houses.

Today’s generation did not expect to live under a once in a lifetime pandemic. A new cohort group is born, the Covid-19 pandemic generation, a category that will separate them from those who will be born or live in the post-Covid-19 world. The group will be the subject of numerous sociological as well as psychological and medical studies and investigations in years to come.

Year 2020 has come to an end but the Covid-19 pandemic is far from over. The pandemic is still raging and it continues to ravage the world. Infections and death toll from it continue to rise. Data from the Johns Hopkins University which track the pandemic reveal that as of this writing, the deadly SARS-CoV-2 virus infected 18,852,622 people and killed 1,766,331.

How the pandemic will end remain an open-ended question. Experts can only project the contour of the ending, but they cannot be certain of its exact form and shape. 2021 enters amid the pandemic and it will definitely be an uncertain year. How events will play out in 2021 is unknown. There are many imponderables in this pandemic and these will unravel in 2021. Certainly, the road out of the plague will have many twists and turns and this early some signs of uncertainty are manifesting.

2020 closes with the discovery of a new strain of Covid-19 virus known as B.1.1.7 in the United Kingdom (UK).  Initial data on the new mutation show that this strain is 70 percent more infectious or transmissible than the original strain. Another mutation referred to as 501.V2 was also discovered in South Africa and this variant was also reported in Nigeria. A virus usually mutates to be one step ahead of the human immune response, its own way of survival. The battle against Covid-19 is far from over.

Even the roll-out of the vaccines, the only light in the current darkness does not indicate the war against the pandemic is ending. It only signifies humans are fighting back and are developing the tools against the unseen enemy.

Vaccination has started in the UK, the US and some countries that procured the vaccines but only among health workers and the elderly, the most vulnerable segments of the population. Mass vaccination is projected to start in the US in the second quarter.

In the Philippines, it is still a long way to go for vaccination. As exposed by Sen. Ping Lacson, the country is supposed to get 10 million Pfizer vaccines in January 2021 but Du30’s beloved Health Secretary Duque dropped the ball (as usual) and the allocation for the Philippines primarily went to Singapore, China and India.

With the delay, vaccines will arrive in the Philippines in the third quarter of 2021 unless the AstraZeneca vaccines negotiated by the private sector materialize in May next year.  Du30 already declared this week the military and the police will be prioritized in vaccination. This again exposes the incompetence, lack of public concern and irresponsibility of his administration. Health workers and the elderly should be given the highest priority in vaccination as other countries have done.

Filipinos already had a difficult year in 2020. They face an uncertain future in 2021 under an inept, callous, and insensitive administration. Du30 spends his weekly night show red-tagging people and organizations than presenting the country with a roadmap on how to combat the raging pandemic. Even a blueprint of the mass vaccination of 110 million Filipinos has not been drawn. 2021 is a bleak year for the Philippines.