Covid-19. Past, present and future

By Ahmet Abdulaziz ….

Regarding the Covid-19 pandemic, the world is now facing a number of problems. Sure the pandemic has been here for over a year now, yet human beings the world over are still at the receiving end. On one hand, the number of fresh cases and deaths  and on the other, the news about unfair distribution and effectiveness of vaccines, are making people think seriously about the future of the pandemic.

Last year, when the pandemic started and engulfed a large part of the world in a short period of time, we all witnessed human beings dying everywhere in the world. At that time, everyone was praying for a vaccine to erode the Covid-19 menace from the world.

The whole world had felt relieved when the news about availability of vaccines came up. We all thought that ultimately the pharmaceutical firms had risen to the demand of the time, and the timeless and tiring efforts of the scientists, had ultimately succeeded to bring out what can very rightly be called the “saviour of human lives”. The world in general waited patiently for the period of vaccine testing, whereas in fact all of us were more than anxious to be vaccinated without any further loss of time. The news about side effects of the vaccines surfaced initially, but nobody took that seriously, since everyone was fed up with the “killer” Covid-19.

The vaccination process started quickly, but of course it was not too easy to carry the required number of vaccines to every corner of the earth. All of us had understood initially that it would take much time to make the vaccines available everywhere.

Not much time had passed when the news of improper distribution of vaccines started appearing in the international press. The third world countries were not getting the vaccines in time and in the necessary quantity. Thus some countries started going through a very critical period, due to non-availability of the vaccines. It can be said that the heroic acts of the scientists who invented these vaccines, got a dent, due to incorrect decisions of some people involved in critical decision making regarding distribution.

But that’s not all. There is more than one type of vaccine available to get rid of the Covid -19 pandemic. In fact it’s good to see that not one single country or authority or producer has got a monopoly on the vaccines, but the availability of vaccines coming from different countries and different producers has raised some questions in the minds of the people getting vaccinated, and have made them confused. The public in general has developed a habit of comparing the Chinese vaccine with that of Europe and America. This practice is going on, and we do not know where this will lead us all to.

With the vaccination going on everywhere in the world, at the fast possible speed, the fact is that the virus is still busy in taking valuable human lives, in India, and many other countries.

As last year everyone was asking about the date when the vaccination could be started, once again after a lapse of a year, we all are wondering if all humans on the surface of the world will be vaccinated and when, without losing many more lives.