culture
The Sunday Feed
From Pandemic to Endemic — The intruder lives on!
The only thing that has kept the world busy in the last 2 years has been the pandemic. It just does not seem to end. So while endemic gives you an impression that it is about ending the virus, it is actually quite the opposite.
Endemic actually means that we cannot erase the virus and we will have to get used to living with it. Those who are vaccinated stand a chance of going through an easy recovery and less long term damage as compared to those who aren’t. This is what the experts seem to say but every now and then we see a lot of cases breaking the norm.
Well things are not going to go exactly as planned because the plans have a lot of caveat in them. They are completely based on assumptions, which, will only be deemed to be true or false after being tested in real time. Which means we will be able to confirm whether we were right or wrong to assume after the event has happened.
As more and more states in Australia reach the 70% double dosage mark, they are preparing an exit plan. They are calling it the path to freedom. Well to begin with, no one took away your freedom. It is a Pandemic and any person with half a brain can understand that you cannot fight a virus. You have to shield yourself from it and let the medics do their work. If lockdown is the only interim solution, then better stay at home till it is safe to go out. I think too much of junk food is depleting the brain at a very exponential rate!
So before the gates to freedom are opened let’s look at a country that has been there, done that — Singapore, a small country with a population of about 5.7million people. Singapore is a highly developed country offering a place that businesses can use as a hub. It also houses the world’s best medical practitioners and a lot of people prefer to get a surgery done in Singapore. I think, they can get the expertise, technology and cleanliness of a developed country like US, UK or Australia at prices that are relatively low.
When Singapore opened for business after reaching a target of 80% double dosage, it saw a huge spike in positive cases. The numbers crossed the thousand mark! The hospitals were reaching the capacity and the government was in a state of stress. However, what they realised was that the people who were fully vaccinated did not actually needed to be in the hospital. They could well be treated at home. However, a strange phenomenon that came out was that almost half the people who got infected were fully vaccinated!
The doctors and specially the epidemiologists feel that natural immunity is always better than a vaccine. But it is also risky. So it is better to be vaccinated. However, they feel that people will develop immunity to fight the virus as the day progresses.
So what should a country like Australia and its people do to prevent huge damages:
1. Continue wearing the mask for some months at least
2. Continue to use hand sanitisers
3. Maintain social distance
4. Avoid public places like pubs and clubs for some time
5. Avoid social gatherings because that’s where we drop our
guard
6. Wait for the self-check device and OTC drug for Covid-19 to
be freely available, just in case you think you need one
7. Start eating healthy, food that is easy to flush out
8. Have organic food
9. Exercise more
10. Use outdoor gyms for some time
While all this is fine, we still need to answer a dilemma, whether the children need to be vaccinated or not. I sincerely feel that adults should be more responsible and take the onus on them to stop the spread. Pfizer has been given the clearance that it is safe on children. How safe, we will know as years go by!
However, I somehow get a feeling that the children are being penalised for something we are responsible for. Whether it’s over exposure to radiation from everyday internet or genetic food that has completely destroyed our immunity is a topic that yet needs to be answered. It could be a combination of both!
Well if the virus is strong, it has no idea how strong humans are. I am sure, we will all emerge from this crisis except that we will lose a few mates on the way. But I guess that’s what life is all about. Everything that is created will one day be destroyed and everything that is destroyed will one day emerge as something or someone new! So be strong and be safe! There is always light at the end of the road. The light shinning on the sign of the Pub, which says, “Open.”
Photo: Cottonbro on Pexels
