The Teddies Review - Dec 2021

virus would not result in the deadliest manifestations of infection that we have come so distinctly to expect – respirators, A&E, and life support. Over time, this virus will only trigger small surges of milder illness and once upon a day in the future, the coronavirus will become just like the seasonal flu

COVID: When Will It End?

Every day the media provides article after article about the newest COVID disaster or the latest deaths. Every day we are punched in the face with the prospect of a doomed future, waiting just around the corner. But is this really our reality? With the Christmas holidays around the corner, there’ll be stockings soon overflowing, the sound of jingle bells bouncing off the streets, and houses brimming with Christmas cheers and laughter. The future is looking bright and hopeful regardless of the past. With the heroic and speedy efforts at producing the vaccine, having been released just under a year ago, times are changing for the better and peoples’ frowns are hopefully, slowly, turning upside down. However, COVID will be with us for a long time yet, so what does our future actually look like? Should we be optimistic and expect to return to normalcy? Or, are we going to get more devastation, in which more lives will be lost, more lockdowns imposed, and Christmas heartlessly turned into a nightmare? The truth of the matter is that pandemics always end. However, i t isn’t just a vaccine that ends them - it’s our immune system. A deadly pathogen such as COVID-19 will stop spreading because most of the population are protected against it either because they’ve already had it (they’re inoculated), or they have been vaccinated. Therefore, our immune system adapts and learns how to fight against this pathogen so that the next time it enters our body, our cells know how to battle it. The The body finds a way

“Are we nearly there, yet?”

However, the question now turns to when this transition will take place? Unfortunately, not even the experts know – it’s a question scientists are working tirelessly to answer. Many of them, including Maria Van Kerkhove, the World Health Organization’s leadi ng coronavirus expert, had previously thought that we’d be out of this acute phase already. But it is clear that many countries, such as India, Austria, Slovenia, have entered yet another virulent wave, confirming over 1500 positive cases per million people. Hospitals have become congested with a steady pace of mostly preventable admissions. This has had the inevitable chain reaction of taking healthcare staff away from other services, resulting in the cancellations of screening and operations. Not as many people might be dying because of COVID, but it creates potential issues somewhere else – undiagnosed cancers, unsupported mental health cases, or unoperated tumours. The winter is looking gloomy, as it always does