It is mid-August now, and the grueling and perilous fight against COVID continues.
Tonight, we take a short break from stories about COVID infections in different places, and have a recap on the fight against the deadly virus in the first half of 2021.
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Eight months ago, just in a second's time, the world departed 2020 and entered 2021, a year which many believe and hope would be less eventful.
And now, the beleaguered earth is still battling with our common foe - COVID - which still remains invincible.
Imagine being on a train that entered a tunnel of which you can never get out. In December 2019, every one of us boarded that particular train and until now, we all still haven't a clue as to when the world will succeed in stamping out the virus.
Given a chance, would you like to reverse the hands of time or get an express ticket to go to another world without the virus?
We all yearn for that ticket. Nevertheless, disparities in vaccine access and anti-vaccine movements can only mean we might have to go back to the drawing board and map out our plans again to rid the world of COVID.
In light of the grave COVID situation, some countries have learned to live with the virus, while some beleaguered countries simply don't have that luxury.
Disparities in vaccine access remain a tough question that has yet to be resolved. Case in point is that well-to-do countries like Germany and Israel have vaccinated two-thirds of their populations, whereas only some 2 percent of Africa's population has been vaccinated.
In April this year, a COVID crisis in India ensnared the necks of hundreds of thousands of Indians as hospital beds and oxygen supplies were stretched thin. Morgues were overwhelmed and gravediggers had to work around the clock to bury the dead. Oxygen prices immediately surged.
It was in May when people all around the world thought everything was fine following the end of India's COVID crisis, the crisis opened up a pandora's box. The crisis didn't really end, but instead, a new highly transmissible COVID variant - the notorious Delta variant - emerged.
That sent COVID infections skyrocketing in countries all across the globe, including Britain and the U.S., two of the hardest-hit countries.
Just as Britain was going to lift all COVID restrictions in July, the U.K. recorded the worst COVID surge ever. To make matters worse, former health minister Matt Hancock was found to have breached COVID social distancing restrictions with businesswoman Gina Coladangelo, with whom Hancock had an extramarital affair. That's because CCTV images featuring him kissing and embracing Coladangelo emerged. That scandal eventually culminated in Hancock's resignation in July.
In the United States, there's been a lot of anti-vaxxers who have taken to stymieing efforts to increase vaccination rates to tame the virus. That's despite the government assuaging fears and reiterating that vaccines' benefits far outweigh their adverse effects.
The U.S. endured a winter surge in January this year, as records were obliterated every day. But Biden's vaccination programme didn't go awry, and that successfully made infections plummet.
Be that as it may, thanks to the Delta variant, COVID infections in the U.S. quickly tripled in just a month's time. A public health disaster as in the beginning of July, the 7-day average of new COVID cases was around 20,000. But in late July, the 7-day average became 70,000. And to put it in perspective, the average rose about 50,000 in just a month.
The politicisation of and disinformation about vaccines continue to thwart efforts to increase vaccination rates. And low vaccination rates, according to U.S. health officials, would allow the virus to form new mutations.
And the worst-case scenario, from the CDC director, is that we will see a total of 3 million cases by the end of the year or early next year.
Witnessing the virus spiralling out of hand, the Biden administration has resorted to banishing misinformation and disinformation about vaccines on social media platforms like Facebook, which teenagers spend hours every day using, completely. Health officials not only in the U.S. but across the globe, believe those compelling narratives have become so embedded, many unvaccinated will take one step backward and refuse to get a vaccine. Therefore, only by getting rid of those narratives will more people get inoculated.
But it takes two to tango. Only when both health officials and the general public are willing to form a united front can the world succeed in this perilous fight.
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