As we all know, because Al ‘Boris’ Johnson told us, the Covid-19 epidemic has passed. ‘Only’ around 1000 people have died of/with Covid in the last couple of days and, you’ll be relieved to learn that the Omicron variant is as lethal as the original version, but because of vaccines it’s no longer so likely to kill us. However, if we start to think everything is back to normal, then we should think again.
If you have children at school, if you have first or second hand experience of hospitalisation, if you have taken flights out of the country or merely taken the bus or train where you live you will know things aren’t normal. People who work in these areas get sick like the rest of us and so each have had issues. Entire classes being sent home, sometimes whole year groups, lengthy waits for ambulances and waiting around on trolleys and cancelled transport. Although these things don’t attract much coverage in government-favouring media outlets like the Sun, Mail, BBC etc, life is being seriously disrupted for many.
Despite my current state of unemployability, it has affected me, too. My local health centre has advised patients to avoid making contact unless you are near to death (I exaggerate, but only slightly), a few buses I was expecting to catch failed to turn up, causing great bladder discomfort, and a local care home I visit to see someone on a weekly basis has imposed a ban on visitors – any visitors – since the middle of February. I have not seen my person since late January because I managed to contract the bloody disease myself. More about that in a moment.
I know from various anecdotes that care homes up and down the land are in the same position, as are some hospital wards, and people are still dying alone, without their loved ones being allowed near them. Johnson and the government talk about “living with Covid”, but not so much about people dying with it or being unable to speak to and be with loved ones. Things are not as bad as they were at pre vaccine Covid, but for a good number of people, nothing has changed.
Now I am in favour of ‘living with Covid” because most of us won’t die from it. I’d be a massive hypocrite if I didn’t given the way I am once again living my life, but the restrictions around care homes, for example, show that not everyone will be able to live with Covid. A thousand people in two days last week couldn’t live with it. The virus is going to be with us forever. It could be that to protect the most vulnerable we will find ourselves locking down on and as and when basis forever, too.
What makes me wonder is the recovery period from the virus. We don’t know enough about the virus in order to assess the long term consequences but I know, having had the bugger at the end of January 2022, not all the symptoms disappear straight away. That’s the same with me. I’m an asthmatic and since I had Covid, my asthma has been worse than usual. In a normal year, asthma comes in peaks and troughs. Sometimes I need to use my inhalers, other times less so. But since I had the virus, I’ve had more periods of breathlessness than before. I sense things are, slowly, improving but it’s around two months since I had my last positive Covid test. What I thought was a mild case may have been slightly less mild than I thought it was.
Life is much more ‘normal’ than it was last year. However, no matter how we try to wish Covid away, it’s still here. And I’ll be much happier when I get my next booster jab.
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