Coronavirus – hopefully (but probably not) the last word

Just over a week ago, on December 7th, 2022, China finally abandoned its zero-Covid strategy and shifted to “living with the virus”, like the rest of the world. This came just a week after protests in the streets against the continued lock-downs and other harsh restrictions the Chinese had been forced to live with long after everyone else had dropped pretty much every anti-Covid regulation. For instance, the only measure surviving in Poland is the wearing of masks in medical facilities and drug stores, and that latter one is probably at risk of evaporating soon. So, while people are still catching Covid and many are still suffering with “long-Covid” and there is still a chance it will come back with a vengeance, for now, after three years of hell, I’m calling the end of this pandemic.

There have been a total of 657 million cases so far – about 8.5% of all humans on the planet. That puts covid-19 in fifth place in the list of all-time worst epidemics, behind HIV/AIDS (1981-today), Plague of Justinian (541-549), Spanish Flu (1918-20) and the big one, the Black Death (1346-53).

Covid-19 has now directly killed 6.7 million people – that’s roughly the entire population of Bulgaria, more than the population of Denmark or Ireland. However, that’s only the official global covid-19 death toll, if you expand that to include what are being called “excess deaths” (people who died not directly because of covid-19 but of causes attributable to the pandemic generally) the death toll rises to somewhere between 16-28 million with the ‘official’ figure set at 20.8 million and that’s DOUBLE the populations of Greece, Portugal or Sweden and heading towards the population of Australia.

The best places to ride out the pandemic were Tuvalu, Falkland Islands, Saint Helena or Vatican City, which all had cases but zero deaths. Playing the averages though, deaths per 1 million population, guess where was a great place to be – China, where it all started! China, perhaps helped by the severity of their restrictions, had only 4 deaths per million compared to 3,324 in the USA which is the 16th worst place so far. Top spot for places you didn’t want to be goes to Peru with 6,465 deaths per million. After Peru, it seems the Balkans were best avoided because most of them are in the top ten along with Bulgaria, Hungary, Czech, Slovakia, Georgia. I lived through the pandemic in Poland, which is 21st on the list with 3,138 deaths per million, worse than the UK in 26th place with 2,887. The global average is 856 and nearest well-known country to this average is Norway.

But the thing is, the pandemic is about much. much more than just cases and deaths. It has exposed inadequate health systems and governments. It has taught us a lot about human nature – good and bad. It has massively damaged economies and peoples lives. It has re-written how work is done and it has proved that a lot of this work does not have to be done in an office. It has changed the face of retail and significantly boosted on-line shopping. I guess there has never been a time on earth when so many parcels were being delivered. Sadly though, it has taken an unmeasured toll in mental health, domestic violence and confidence generally. Nobody is as comfortable now as they used to be when in crowded places, meeting rooms, concerts, parties. It has taught us not to take the life we have for granted and to cherish every small freedom we have, like being able to walk around without a mask, not disinfect every time we touch something, to shake somebody’s hand or give them a hug, to enjoy a meal in a restaurant, to travel.

Personally, I never caught covid-19 and neither did Marta or Zosia (yet) but it definitely contributed to the death of my father in February 2021, which then contributed to the decline and eventual death of my mother in October this year and thanks to my father being sent home from care while infected with covid-19, my sister and pretty much all my family in the UK got covid, some more than once. Many work colleagues have also had covid and one or two have died from it. All of which drives home what will become perhaps my most abiding memory of this pandemic – the randomness of it. Whether you were careful or not, exposed or not, vaccinated or not, to some extent didn’t seem to matter. Some people didn’t get it at all, some people got it but easy, some got it and suffered, some died, some are still suffering. I’m sure vaccinations helped but for the most part, it was a roll of the dice.

Those of us still standing have lived through the first (and hopefully only) pandemic of our lives, but the world is a very different place to what it was before it arrived and we are still trying to come to terms with that in so many ways.