Dr. Shyam P Lohani

As of the time of writing this article, there were more than 189,165,624 COVID-19 cases globally and 4,074,457 deaths in 220 countries and territories. These are very likely the tip of the iceberg, given limited testing and an unfortunate stage to hide cases to avoid wage and job losses.
All of our lives have changed since the last one and a half years, each of us adapting to living through a pandemic and trying to make comfortable with the unpredictable. For many of us, the pandemic might have caused little more than an inconvenience but for majority of others, it has been a time of unimaginable tragedy and life-changing consequences. The contagion has brought intolerable sufferings to millions of migrant workers due to the sudden lockdown, and the lack of preparedness for their welfare will remain a matter of deep shame to all the stakeholders.
Evaluating how coronavirus is behaving over the last one and a half years, it can be said that COVID-19 is going to stay for some time. The future course of the disease depends on many unknowns such as how immunity develops against it, how efficiently vaccination rolls out, how seasonality affects its spread, how infective mutations develop, how the government plans to tackle its spread, and how the individuals behave.

Desperate situation
At this time of misery, billions of people are still in lockdown, unable to visit one another, unable to go to work, unable to attend school, unable to meet one another in public places. People around the world are in a desperate state, struggling at home, in care homes and intensive care units, dying of the same cause, separated from their loved ones in their hours of need. At times of looming potential danger, we desire to be close to our family and friends, hold their hands and embrace them but for long we are forbidden to do so. It has been proved that every act of physical contact could bring illness, suffering, and death.
It is extraordinary, however, that the lockdown period has led to the regeneration of nature. After many decades, we have been able to see blue skies, pollution levels dropped, and several species of animals, birds, and insects staged a comeback. Now, it is our collective responsibility to make these positive changes sustainable and adopt a new normal.
The COVID-19 pandemic changed our life drastically. It may have changed in individual terms from our morning routines to life goals and priorities. It may seem like the world has changed forever but we still hope that vaccines will bring infections down and variants are dealt with, life could return to somewhat normal. Was our greed for continuous battles for wealth, status, and power really a waste of our lives? We may not have recognised the value of people around us from our family and friends, colleagues, to also strangers.
We have realised the value of freedom, the freedom to move, to be with those we love, to live in dignity and security both for ourselves and for those around us. COVID-19 highlights the importance of our interdependence and global cooperation. It has shown that we are in the same boat. It has become clear that we cannot achieve security in isolation, within the borders of our country, culture, class, or religion. Thus, a virus can be defeated somewhere only when it is defeated everywhere.
Vaccines really are worth getting. In the past, it has taken four to 20 years to create conventional vaccines. For COVID-19, we developed vaccines within a record 11 months. The process with which vaccines against COVID-19 may have changed forever the way drugs and/ or vaccines are developed in the future.
The pandemic introduced a new urgency to switch over to platforms like Zoom for remote patient visits. However, there are still problems for which we need to see a health professional in person. We rightly hoped that scientists, clinicians, and health and social care workers will get us through this crisis. The role of emergency workers, first-line responders cannot be overemphasised. Therefore, it is obvious that we adjust our value systems accordingly.
COVID-19 has shown how important it is to have basic healthcare infrastructure resilient, thus capable of dealing with new diseases. The importance of investing in health manpower development has been realised. The continuous allocation of a significant proportion of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to health has also been felt owing to this pandemic. There has been a rise in reported mental health problems highlighting mental health as an issue that needs to be addressed. The importance of psycho-social counselling in the time of pandemics cannot be overlooked. The COVID-19 pandemic has taught us how mask-wearing has become a key prevention strategy to prevent respiratory droplets from spreading.

Future course
Many of us have become aware of how important it is to have other people in our lives. Many of us have managed to reconnect the social connections, even with the help of technology to keep in touch. Connectivity has become critical and internet connectivity turned into absolutely essential.
The COVID-19 pandemic has taught us that we can travel less, work from home, think differently, and thrive digitally. It has created new dimensions to be productive and to share our lives and share in the lives of others. As the future is still surrounded by uncertainties, the best approach to fighting off this pandemic would be to follow preventive strategies with approaches to protect the vulnerable populations. Last but not the least, continuous impetus should be directed to upgrade the healthcare capacities in tackling serious COVID cases and carrying out a mass vaccination campaign.

(Prof. Lohani is the founder and academic director at Nobel College. lohanis@gmail.com)