This is no way to end the year – with the threat of a Covid re-entry! We had begun 2022 with the pretence that the pandemic was well and truly over, only mildly deterred by Omicron in January. With its inability to get into lungs and infiltrate the respiratory system, Omicron, as it turned out, was only a poor photocopy of the deadly virus. And once we weathered that there was no stopping us. Crowds and mobs, parties and conferences, gyms and markets, beaches and bars, we were back there in a glittery dress or a pair of Bermudas, holding our laptops and shopping bags, as the occasion demanded. And mask? No, sir.
At first, we stuffed masks in a hurry into our purse or pocket when we left home – as an afterthought. Then we genuinely began to forget them. We made snide remarks about those who masked up, feeling like rebels and revolutionaries who fight righteously for the freedom of their mouth-land. We invested once again in lipsticks and cigarettes, our speech stopped being muffled, we spoke up and were heard, we sang and whistled. No way were we going to go back to masks, however colour-coordinated and designer they may be.
The new photos from China, of corpses piled up in a funeral home, has shaken the common man. Hospitals there are said to be saturated with patients. Stats put cases at 1 million a day with 5,000 deaths. Tokyo has raised the highest alert for medical service provisions after an assessment of its coronavirus situation. Educational institutions in India are returning to Covid-19 protocols. International flights are set to be monitored.
Is Covid going to reuse the planet as a deadly dance floor? Nah, we shake our head and go about our day, which involves meeting and greeting people. The spooked quiver that used to run through us, chilling us to the marrow, when a stranger touched us accidentally – we are over that now. Bravely, we surge into pavements and cafés, onward we march, shaking hands, hugging and kissing cheeks.
Perhaps we are trying to integrate the virus into the system, making it a part of our life, accommodating it as a tiresome guest who always outstays his welcome. We have been vociferously celebrating everything, including the rumour that the virus is gone, gone, gone. For instance, the journal Science’s Breakthrough of the Year is the James Webb Space Telescope; whose first images did go viral. The Nobel Prize, the Booker Prize, the Oscars, the Emmys, the Grammys… they have all gone to someone or the other with great applause. Life goes on. But the ghost of Covid has persistently followed us around, invisible but lethal.
We can only keep our fingers crossed, that the new death count being whispered about is only a scaremonger. That if we plug our ears and keep our eyes shut tight, it will all go away. Because nothing is a bigger buzzkill than a pandemic that won’t die.
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