Today marks one year since the WHO announced the pandemic. Incredible. Six months ago, I wrote a post to mark that milestone with a few predictions/speculations for today. Then I made a note to update it.
So here goes:
Wolf Blitzer just said it’s 6 months to the day since the WHO declared this Covid pandemic.✔️
Dr. Fauci just said it’ll be a year before life goes back to how it was before the pandemic.✔️
The Weather Channel just said it’s going to be an El Nina winter (extra cold).
That’s a lot to take in. (Well, despite a couple God awful weeks, relatively this winter wasn’t as bad as if certainly could have been.)
So 6 months from now: there’ll be a vaccine,(4 actually!), we’ll be in the downward slide of winter ✔️, Spring will be nearer ✔️, Bill’s wedding will be overX (a Covid casualty) and the promise of travel should be, once again, a possibility. (Well, practically, no, as there are many restrictions in place with testing requirements, self-isolations in hotels after air travel, land border between Canada and USA still being closed BUT the prospect for change is higher than its ever been because of the beginning of and hope in vaccinations).
This has been an incredible roller coaster ride. In these 6 months (3 actually) there have been: vaccination inventions, announcements, procurements, distributions, threats of it being held back, a 4-week “slow down”/stop of delivery in February, a ramp up afterward, an announcement to increasing the second dose from 3-4 weeks to 4 months to enable more people to get the initial dose quicker. As of today, the Saskatchewan online booking system opened to 85+ year olds and tentative dates have been announced to receive our “jabs”...(I’m looking at you April 19!!!!!).
Also currently, the race is on between vaccinations and variants. Strains from the UK are especially worrying and present here, but ones from Brazil, South Africa and Southern California seem to be looming with questions and concerns of their own. So, the roller coaster ride continues it’s ups and downs with no sense of certainly of when we can get off and be back on solid ground again.
Like a roller coaster, so has been my state of mind. On the up side, I have taken up painting, walked for hours and miles a day, listened to many audiobooks, and am grateful to not be working. On the down side, I’ve been oddly concerned about getting water in the basement, felt alone and lonely more than I ever have, had such a sense of “Groundhog Day”, watched far too much gloom and doom news.
It seemslike better days are coming. Apparently, in the next three weeks we are to receive more doses of the vaccine than we have in the last three months. 🤞🏼🤞🏼🤞🏼But it feels like it’s been so long since there has been anything positive and immediate in this regard that people, myself included, seem hesitant to embrace good news quickly; to believe that the end is, actually, nigh. I am finding it more and more challenging to just, simply, wait.
That said, to remain hopeful as I countdown to vaccination day in April, I think about next winter in San Diego, about going home to see Deed and Brenda, about singing again, about taking painting and glass classes; to just feel safer leaving the house and more relieved once family and friends are vaccinated too.
As of today, 7% of Canadians have had their jab. It’s coming. Not fast enough, but it’s coming.
A few months ago, I started this list. I can’t wait to eradicate these from the vernacular!
Words I Can’t Wait To Not Hear Any More:
Corona
Covid
19
Pandemic
Pivot
Variant
Mask
Virus
Self-isolate
“New normal”
Physical distancing
Donald Trump
Covid fatigue
Bubble
Connect virtually
Spike protein
“We’re all in this together”
“Flatten the curve”
“Another layer of protection”
“Another tool in the tool box”
“Rounding the corner”
“Light at the end of the tunnel”
Second wave
Efficacy
“Could be worse”
Front line workers
Spike protein
Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4
