A year went by

It’s been exactly a year ago that I’ve posted about the pandemic for the first time. In retrospect, the numbers that were frightening then look positively optimistic. In many countries, the first peak - the Spring 2020 one - does not even register when looking at a full year history. The third peak has started in full swing in multiple places, and it might be worse than the second one. Poland is well on the way to topping the infection numbers from November 2020, though we’re not hitting comparable daily death counts yet. Potentially the vaccination campaign has at least managed to remove the most vulnerable from the pool.

Poland now has 4.5 million people vaccinated, versus 1.9 million who’ve contracted the disease. Worldwide, it’s 355 million vaccinated versus 120 million recorded cases. Certain threshold has been reached, but it will be the end of 2021 before wealthy countries are done with the vaccination drive, and potentially even 2023 until the whole world has achieved a reasonable level of immunity. Global deaths are estimated at 2.65 million, but likely to be severely underreported.

In terms of global impact, this definitely is a generation-defining event, as was predicted a year ago. In local terms, I see people I know dealing in very different ways. Burn out and anxiety are through the roof, as the unending unpredictability of the circumstances takes a toll. Statistically, I’m aware that birth rates have taken a heavy hit, but among my close family, this seems to have been the year to have offspring in multitudes.

Personally, I’ve tried to leave most social media and newspapers behind, as news was causing me a significant amount of stress I could not resolve in any way. Winter darkness has also taken its usual toll. We have hardly met with any friends or family the past year. At times I question the sanity of my own choice, when I hear about elder relatives entertaining 10+ guests, indoors. Only weeks away from being vaccinated, this feels like a particularly unreasonable behaviour. Though we have discussed this so many times that I have no hope left of getting through to them.