Is the multi-year Covid cycle coming to an end?
It does look more and more like it, doesn't it?
Many European countries have opened up completely. It still boggles my mind to see stadiums full of spectators without masks every weekend, but I guess that shows how we're trending.
In Singapore and Thailand, more than ever, people I know are contracting, then recovering from Covid. At this rate, most of us will be vaccinated/boosted/Covid-recovered/all-of-the-above in the next few months, which could allow most nations to declare Covid endemic.
In the first year of the pandemic, people were dying from Covid in the hundred of thousands, I lost (mostly unvaccinated) friends and colleagues from the virus. It was impossible for me to accept a colleague passing away because he went to work. On the other hand, I had colleagues who did not know anything about vaccines and rejected them. At that time, the reason for vaccination was clear - to prevent serious life-threatening symptoms, and set an example for my colleagues to accept the concept of vaccination. We couldn't bear to lose anymore of them.
Now, we are almost two and a half years down from the start of the pandemic. The world has lost millions of lives. Covid-vaccination is no longer a foreign concept. In fact, most of us are staring down another deep blackhole - boosters.
Before you start thinking that I am anti-vaccination, let me clarify that I have just gotten my booster 2 days ago. What prompted me to write this is the fact that the decision to take the booster was one of the most difficult and unnerving ones I've made in a while.
I can list down a whole host of good reasons to get boosted:
- I already paid for it long ago (yes, it was a warzone to secure vaccinations in Thailand, be thankful if you got yours without a fight), and it wasn't easy to get it.
- I have to be fair to my colleagues, who have mostly gone for their boosters, even though many were anti-vaccination in the beginning.
- I need it to be able to travel (in fact, countries like Singapore give a validity period for vaccinations, and Malaysia requires different number of quarantine days depending on how many jabs you have, etc. etc.)
- For protection, for health, for my family.
I want it to be solely because of 4., but why do I feel like I did it even more because of a combination of 1-3?
I hate this feeling.