Graphic by Anjali Rao-Herel ‘22
By Kaveri Pillai ’23
Staff Writer
In January 2021, the global community completed one full year with COVID-19. After months of harsh lockdowns in India and New Zealand and days of rising cases in the United Kingdom and the United States, 2021 is, hopefully, the light at the end of the tunnel. With 11 vaccines having been authorized across several countries and a record of 205 million of these vaccines being administered globally, the pandemic is slowly becoming history.
However, the rate of production and distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine is no match for the rate at which people are running toward their old normal. With many people believing that the vaccine is the one true solution to the problem of the pandemic, some of the protective measures that were adopted in 2020, such as regular mask-wearing and social distancing, are now being abandoned. Moreover, Moderna’s CEO Stéphane Bancel debunked the idea of returning back to our old ways, saying, “We are going to live with this virus, we think, forever.”
Ultimately, the question that plagues our minds is this: If the vaccine isn’t going to eliminate the virus instantly, why get it? Organizations like the Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organization will now have to spearhead conversations about how essential vaccines are, how to live with this virus in the long run and how to pay more attention to issues like climate change in order to reduce the occurrence of similar virus outbreaks in the future.
As stated on the WHO’s main COVID-19 web page, vaccines are integral in building up a person’s immune system. They prepare the body’s natural defenses and help it recognize and fight off bacteria and viruses, thereby stopping the illness from infecting the body. The production of a COVID-19 vaccine has been accelerated due to the declaration of a global health emergency. Right now, the efficacy of those vaccines is under debate. With pharmaceutical companies spending less than a year collecting information on the virus and producing the vaccine, the suspicion around the potential failure of the vaccine has divided the world.
With this as the backdrop, countries like the U.S. and the U.K. have already started circulating their respective vaccines in stages. Cities like New York in the U.S. and Mumbai in India have started opening up cinema theaters and clubs, a move that can be incredibly counterproductive to controlling the virus spread.
Social distancing and mask-wearing have to be continued even during the vaccine stages because of the slow pace of herd immunity and the lack of knowledge we currently have about how fast the vaccine can work. Promoting the vaccines has been a priority for agencies and governments; however, these groups need to push for the continuance of 2020 norms as well, and should continue to open up cities in a restricted and controlled manner.
The coming conclusion of the pandemic has also indicated a needed focus on COVID-19’s connection to human-caused environmental damage. Global warming and the extinction of various species has led scientists to this line of thought. An increase in human pressure on the natural environment and the depletion of living space for hundreds of animals has led to a dangerously blurry line that exists between ecosystems.
“By making animals sicker and pushing them into new habitats, we expect that climate change should have downstream effects on the evolution of viruses at a global scale,” Dr. Colin J. Carlson at the Center for Global Health Science and Security at Georgetown University said, further emphasizing the current hypothesis of the origin of the virus, which is being traced back to animals. A greater protection of biodiversity, dependency on plant-based products for food, and an increased surveillance of infectious disease in wildlife have to be pushed forward in order to prepare people for what may become a regularity in terms of future virus outbreaks.
Furthermore, the rising global temperatures and melting of permafrost in the Arctic region say a lot about the future of active viruses. A spike in heat waves can melt glaciers that have housed dormant diseases for decades and increase virus outbreaks, like the one we are experiencing now. Immediate action has to be taken in combating climate change, and scientists need to conduct more conversations about the potential dangers of global warming to help people understand why this pandemic happened, prepare them for the worst and encourage them to change their lifestyles to prevent such disasters from happening again.
The pressure on the scientific community is incredibly high. The pandemic is surely not behind us, and the “new normal” has to be constructed in a way that will emphasize the continued need for coronavirus vigilance and create a less damaging relationship to the environment.