Saturday 4 December 2021

Pandemic Thoughts: November 2021

The Following is For Reference Only, the 2021 Summary will follow in four weeks' time.

Another month starts with our attention having wandered away from Covid for a while, instead taking interest in the COP26 intergovernmental conference on Climate Change, with a small amount of hope that after nearly two years of health crisis conditions around the globe,  world leaders might actually start to take the existential threat of the climate crisis just as seriously, but despite what feel like weeks of discussions little seems to come out of it, aside from a non-binding agreement to phase out coal usage, which hasn't been signed by the remaining major coal consuming economies. It's a horrible realisation to make, that those who would govern all of us have little real interest in long term planning for the benefit of future generations, setting targets to be met by 2050, long after any of them will have any stake in the future well-being of the world, but we really shouldn't be surprised, as we ought to be aware that as soon as challenges to the enduring problems of contemporary economics are faced, the wagons are circled in an attempt to protect the status quo, and after all this is the 26th such conference on the matter, and all the previous meetings have failed to create binding agreements and actions. So we have one less reason to feel hopeful after all that, and instead reflect on where the Pandemic is leading us as we transition out of the light half of Autumn and into the Dark Season, and despite having a few days of infections spiking above 50,000 per day, a renewed surge in the rate doesn't come to pass, and the familiar sort of numbers continue throughout the month, apparently fired most prominently among family groups, and with the under 12s being the most harshly affected group for the first time, showing that circulation among the un-vaccinated is still the major issue. It can all look like that Covid is becoming socially normalized, and the risk of infection has been allowed to become 'just one of those things' that people catch, with a panel scientists speculating that even in a best-case scenario, it could very plausibly be 2023 before Covid becomes a background disease, among the mix of regular ailments suffered by the general populace, while bad scenarios could have it lasting another five years, with social counter measures and annual booster vaccinations being a regular feature for some time to come.