A 2022 COVID Resolution

It has been two years of wearing masks, sanitising, socially distancing (which I have not minded at all), and trying as much as possible to limit travel. Today, for work, I find myself in an airport in East Africa – you know the one I mean – sitting close (although not too close) to an unmasked man, a few days following the announcement by the UK Prime Minister announces that they, as a country are now “boycotting” all COVID-19 protocol, and they will be relaxing all COVID-19 measures.

In West Africa, Omicron has only recently started peaking. To date, only 52% of the population of the global South are fully vaccinated, and in few countries the booster shot has now been introduced, and people are invited to get theirs.

I find myself, somehow conflicted. On the one hand, I absolutely get it! We are, all of us as the world population, completely over COVID-19 protocols. We are so over it that in December, I spoke to a few people who indicated that they are so tired of being controlled by COVID, that if they were to test positive, they said they would not isolate. Although I certainly would, and for the prescribed period, I find myself understanding where they come from and why they feel this way. On the other hand, and knowing full well that we will have to live with COVID-19 for a long long time, I cannot imagine living through it without a mask, and without keeping a reasonable enough distance between myself and the next person. I still give people the death stare for coughing, and I myself feel ashamed if I even sneeze in public. Earlier, on the travel here, an older man coughed, and I immediately thought of Masupu’s words, that there is not such thing as flu in the summer, when we are living through a global pandemic. I suppose my soft spot for the elderly and the very young directs my bias towards an inclination that we are not taking this seriously enough, and that we should be.

Editor's Comment
Molepolole unrest: Urgent attention on missing person cases

From Jakoba's mysterious disappearance on November 9 to the grim discovery of his remains at Mosinki Lands, a gap in the response mechanisms of the police and village leadership has been laid bare. The community's anger is evident, seen in the attack on Bakang Masole, the man found driving Jakoba's taxi and the main suspect, and the subsequent riot. Residents express discontent, citing a troubling trend of missing persons cases often...

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