Even with the vaccine, will the COVID madness ever end?

This past year has been far from easy for anyone. COVID is all we ever hear about in the news these days. Even with other equally, if not more deadly, world events taking place, COVID still manages to make the headlines with innumerable more cases and deaths every day. Despite more people getting vaccinated, whether halfway or fully, there is at least one more variant of the virus at large. Any location that has been re-opened will be closed again after only a few days. Some people continue to flout lockdown rules despite having already seen the dire consequences of doing so. So after over a year of dealing with lockdowns, social distancing, travel restrictions, event cancellations, protests, and just overall quarantine boredom, will the COVID madness ever end?

I think we can all agree that we are up to here with COVID already. Not only because of the countless lives lost as well as many people having no other way to put food on the table, but for also throwing a wrench into any travel plans, important family gatherings (yes, I’ve just said it), releases of movies we were looking forward to, the list goes on. I thought last year was already bad enough but this year is even more intolerable. Luckily, I managed to land a 6-month contract position last year and have managed to apply for Employment Insurance as of late but we are all now living through Groundhog Day, whether you are employed or not. Every single day is an endless time loop of news reports of more cases, deaths, travel bans, etc.

Now there are rumors of the Delta variant that originated from India. No one is 100% certain that the vaccine will be completely effective against this novel variant and we are not even sure that the scientists who helped create the vaccine were warned about such variants beforehand. There are already numerous reported cases here in Canada, over in the States, the UK, and Australia. Not to mention, there are still plenty of anti-vaxxers around. So even with the vaccine, we still cannot see the light at the end of the tunnel.

So to recap, I am uncertain if the vaccine will be effective against the variant since there seems to be no confirmation that it is, especially with the media continuing to fearmonger as usual. If people continue to break pandemic rules in the hardest-hit countries, the return to normal might take another year…or even longer.