Tuesday, April 20, 2021

Covid 2.0

It's all playing out now as we speak. 

Last year covid was controllable with masks, social distancing and sanitizing. Lockdowns helped create this awareness at a mass scale. Many countries with smaller population managed it well. 

And then people started to think it's not so deadly (asymptomatic majority), it's an old person's disease (mainly comorbitidity deaths), social rebelliousness (no virus can change my life) and that it's just a conspiracy (numbers were low, did not happen to them, perceived economic exploitation by hospitals, testing, pharma) some of these seemed like valid reasoning to even the well educated. 

Thanks to all this, the virus went berserk in certain countries (UK, Brazil, S. Africa, India) and its variants are now airborne, bypasses immune system, goes straight to the lungs and sometimes doesn't show up in RT PCR tests. It's more infectious, affects any age group and this makes it a new pandemic at a completely different level altogether, that is very difficult to comprehend, let alone control.

What brought us to this juncture in India and Brazil? And will the same thing happen elsewhere? 

Many things to think about, as we contemplate our actions going forward.

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