- The risk of serious illness from SARS-CoV-2 infection remains very low; it is largely age-dependent and predictable for the most part, and therefore, we can put strategies in place to protect the most vulnerable.
- While the early stages of the pandemic were hugely alarming, treatment of COVID-19 is now highly sophisticated and effective; medical/scientific expertise in this area has increased exponentially, along with our understanding of the disease in terms of how it is transmitted and so on.
- Following on from Point Number 2, we now have good therapies in place for those who are sick and we are embarking on vaccination programmes, which hopefully will at least reduce the incidence of infection and/or illness.
- We have coped and are coping with the unprecedented demands that have been placed on our financial and emotional infrastructure, and doing so with a surfeit of goodwill and compassion - we will get through this and I firmly believe we will be kinder and better people as a result.
- The world keeps on turning and there is beauty and hope everywhere; we may be limited in our physical interactions and explorations but our minds will always be free. We have found new ways to reach out to each other and show our love, and there have been wonderful examples of basic human decency and innovation - despite all the odds, the human race has revealed its heart.
Happy New Year's Eve everyone! What a monumental year it's been - it's really quite difficult to put into words the sheer emotionality of the 2020 experience and I think it's definitely the case that we haven't yet fully processed everything that's happened. It's been strange and sad and scary and quite unbelievable, but we're here at the tail-end of a truly historic year, and it's appropriate at this point to reflect a little on how our lives have been so massively overturned compared to this time last year (we really had no idea what was coming down the tracks). Families have been torn apart, our cultural and societal scaffolding has been rent asunder, we have had to go to war with an unseen enemy and there has been a surfeit of human suffering and loss - everyone has been seriously affected in some way by this pandemic, including the most hardened COVID-deniers. We have been subjected to a non-stop onslaught of fear, spilling over into overt terror at times, and have had to endure the most severe curbs on personal freedom ever seen in a democratic state; people have lost loved ones, livelihoods, pretty much all familial and community supports and there has been no real respite all year apart from a few golden weeks during the summer - Christmas was not the free-for-all we had been promised and which was desperately needed. Now, we are back at full lockdown in Ireland, with even the re-opening of schools being delayed to give our country a chance to reduce the high number of infectious cases before our health service is no longer able to cope. Dramatic times, indeed... However! Although the situation still appears fairly dire and it's easy to dwell on the difficulties, we must keep a sense of perspective and bear in mind the following:
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About my blog
Really, it contains a little bit of everything, from a celebration of science and the English language to the joys of travel and the Shipping Forecast. The title ('Meanderings') is a fairly accurate description of its content: I write about different things as the mood takes me, but hopefully there's something in here for everyone... Categories
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