Current times are eerily like an Avengers movie now. Thanos and his horde (COVID19) are at the front gates of our house while the Avengers (Vaccines) are assembling to confront them in the final big showdown.
Winter is coming and the first vaccine will be launched next week. Cases are reaching new highs everywhere and vaccine production doses are being ramped up. Who will win in the end?
Mind the gap – there is a timing gap problem staring at us now.
As the northern hemisphere gets colder into winter, it is expected that cases will skyrocket. With last week’s Thanksgiving gatherings and more travelling expected into Christmas/New Year holidays, it is likely that hospitals will see at least another 2 new waves by mid-Jan 2021. America has already shown the way by hitting 4 new records within a day this week.
While vaccine production is moving at “Operation Warp Speed” momentum, it will still take months before we have enough for the world in order to achieve herd immunity to wipe out COVID19 completely. If history is to provide some guidance, smallpox and influenza vaccines took years of effort by WHO to eventually keep the viruses under control globally.
The correct approach for the first batch of vaccine next week should be to target the front line workers and the high-risk group of elderly people. Between the choices of having immunity or possible death, it is a no-brainer decision to choose to take the vaccine, right?
Then there are the anti-vaxxers. Like the groups that claim that the virus is a hoax, this fringe group are against vaccinations and are rising to the occasion now. A friend has already sent me a video on multiple conspiracy theories, one of which is that the vaccine will plant a chip into your body to track you. Lotsa of fake news on this topic will be heading to a cinema near you soon…
Bush, Obama, Clinton and now Biden have pledged to take the vaccine once Fauci gives the go-ahead. We need to have at least 60%+ to get sufficient herd immunity and let the virus die out eventually. Even on the topic of wearing masks, Biden has now asked its citizens to wear one for his first 100 days of his presidency. It is like asking a spoilt child to take his medicine. How difficult is that? In Asia, it is the community first before the individual. Individual rights do not triumph over community safety, period. Love thy neighbours and wear a frigging mask, people…
The world is heading towards a make or break moment soon. The timing of the implementation of vaccines could not have come at a better time. But yet mother Nature and winter will be accelerating the already worsening virus situation into the next 2 months. Governments of the world must come together to co-operate and co-ordinate this push to save humanity.
America should ignore Loser Trump and his whinnying tirades as he fades into obscurity. His game plan is so obvious for all to see. To protect himself and his family at all costs after he leaves the White House and to make as much money as he can on the way out. That is why Giuliani is also behaving like a raging lunatic now as Trump is dangling a presidential pardon in front of him.
Trump will of course try to see if he can even pardon himself for all future legal cases if he can too. If not, there is a story going around that he might just resign before 20 Jan for Pence to take over, so that Pence can pardon him. Still, refusing to concede and attend the inauguration on 20 Jan is part of the overall strategy to fire up support from his hardcore base and ensure his survival. Pledging to run again in 2024 is also key. That way, if the law comes after him, he can use it as a shield to claim that the Democrats are out to get him because they do not want him to run again.
He is now already threatening GOP on the 2 seats being contested in Georgia on 05 Jan. His supporters are now telling Republicans in that state to not vote again as the presidential vote was “stolen” from them. If the Democrats win the 2 seats, they will have a clean sweep of the House, Senate and the White House. It will mean that they can and will push through a long list of legislation which Mitch had been sitting on.
In such COVID19 times where travel and vacations are not possible, what can one do? We create fantasy worlds to immerse ourselves into for a few hours to forget about the craziness and pain of 2020.
My friends and I attended such an event on Thurs evening, travelling around the world in 80 days over 150 minutes in an old warehouse setting of make-believe rooms of different parts of the world. https://www.andsoforth.com.sg/
We went in with little expectations and the event literally blew us away with the elaborate props and setups. It was ingenious of the organizers to work around the many COVID restrictions to come up with a night of fun. Though we had to wear masks and keep our social distance of a meter at all times, they still managed to serve us some nice degustation dishes from different parts of the world as we go into each country-themed room.
We created our own gin tonic drink in the first room via instructions from a bartender. Had sake in the Japan-themed coal mining cave and tried nitrogen-infused popcorn for dessert. We saw trapeze dancers hanging around our hot air balloon platform, went into the Indian jungle to meet an elephant and his trainer, hopped onto the Orient Express train in Hong Kong. Alcohol and fantasy made it a lovely night out with friends.
There is light at the end of a horrible once in a 100 years pandemic tunnel now. Is the finishing line to reach normalcy near or still many months away. Can the world come together to fight this Gaia threatening apocalypse? Time will tell. Meanwhile, mind the gap…
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