Endgame for Pandemic

Over the last two years, we've all thought that at some point this epidemic will end, and then we'll be back to normal. But that doesn't seem to be the case. On this basis, it can be said with almost certainty that COVID will now become our permanent enemy in the name of various variants. Therefore, we will be forced to make some unexpected changes in our lives and routines.

Even though the concept of herd-immunity has strong historical value, because of many variants of virus, acquired immunity has lost its effectiveness and there is ample reason to suspect that epidemics will disappear. It seems that these viruses, which have the power to penetrate the weak human body and make the habitat even after the full dose of the vaccine has been administered, will continue to teach a good lesson to humankind to change into healthy lifestyle.

Every new strain of COVID virus is behaving like a brand-new virus. It seems like it is not possible to rely solely on the vaccine because of the risk of the vaccine not being effective against new strains and victims are showing critical symptoms.

It is not surprising that lay people like us fear that the world will fall into a vicious cycle of developing new vaccines for new types of viruses, marketing them internationally and injecting them into the arms.

Whether it is work or for leisure, it is a very difficult task to stop the movement of human beings, and they are at the speed of sound, it has been seen and experienced. It is not so difficult to understand the level of risk that we are in. The virus travels from one continent to another so swiftly residing in human lungs who necessarily must breathe-in and breathe-out several times in a minute.

The virus usually spreads rapidly as it gets older but does not kill people, in spite of this, in COVID cases, the killer nature of the virus has not changed. On top of that a huge population in poor countries are yet to receive the full dose of the vaccine, hence it would be a mistake to think that the virus will be eradicated. The only choice left for the whole world is to avoid it, we are safe when all are safe from the Virus. Rich countries are safer when poor countries are also safe.

Creating a separate world for poor people is not possible, billions of people are totally out of the reach of the jab. The current scenario of vaccine administration is shameful in the face of human civilization.

GAVI states: “Less than 1% of doses administered globally have gone to people in low-income countries. Meanwhile G7 countries are estimated to have enough vaccines to inoculate their entire population with two doses and still have more than 260 million unused doses at the end of 2021. This vaccine hoarding by high-income countries could mean that more than 60% of the world’s population — or 4.68 billion people — will live in countries that won’t see widespread vaccine coverage until 2022 or even later, allowing the virus to continue to mutate and thrive”.

It looks like we are in the throes of an endless cycle of disaster and relief, social restraint and rest, lockdown and reopening, but the rulers of many countries seem not to be so vigilant, and they are much less interested to understand this than necessary.
Wealthy nations may be vaccinated twice a year against the latest type of virus. But the need for human beings to roam around the globe, whether rich or poor, will continue to spread these viruses from one place to another through the warm human bodies.

The pandemic will only end when equitable distribution of vaccines is in place, regardless of where they live. If the rich countries continue to amass all the doses of the vaccines enough for more than 3 times over for their entire population and keep doing merciless rationing in their distribution across the world, the pandemic will never last. This is how we allow the virus to mutate and continue to spread human to human even across borders. It is already too long since we had vaccines without an honest and practical global approach to distribute equitably.

A global voice must be raised against these belligerent governments to urgently share their excess pile up doses of vaccine to the countries in desperate need.

“If the vaccine isn’t everywhere, this pandemic isn’t going anywhere”, lets us join the fight to end the pandemic.