For the majority of the world’s population, the pandemic has now shifted to endemic. In other words, we accept the fact that Covid-19 may never be eradicated, like most viruses. Given its adeptness at evading immunity, early hopes for herd immunity too have been dashed. It is here to stay and, therefore, we must learn to live alongside it, managing our own risks of infection. Economies and borders have, by and large, reopened and life has returned to normal or, for some, a “new normal”.
The first cases of the novel coronavirus (SARS-Cov-2) were detected in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. Within mere weeks, the virus had spread rapidly around the globe. The World Health Organization (WHO) declared it a Public Health Emergency of International Concern on Jan 30, 2020, before elevating the outbreak status to a global pandemic on March 11. What ensued was unprecedented in our lifetime, with countries closing their borders and imposing movement restrictions — differing only in the degree of stringency — on their populations.
The virus is still mutating rapidly and new variants (and subvariants) continue to emerge — some strains are more deadly than others, some excel at evading our immune systems (be it immunity from previous infections or vaccination) while most others fall by the wayside without making much of an impact. The Covid-19 pandemic has infected more than 628 million people worldwide (confirmed cases only) while the number of reported deaths directly attributed to the virus is nearing 6.6 million — and counting.
