You know that bit in The Wizard of Oz, where Dorothy turns to Toto and says ‘I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas any more’?
I feel like that just now.
I think a lot of us do.
Nearly two years into Covid we’re all a little bit storm-tossed and disorientated. And now Omicron’s got me wondering if we’ll ever find a way out of this weird new world.
It seems a long time since we comforted ourselves with talk of all the things we’d do when this was over.
Remember those heady days in the dawn of the pandemic, before Omicron and Delta delivered an unwelcome crash course in the Greek alphabet?
We bonded over the promise of boozy nights, exotic holidays, school plays and a hundred other activities we’d never take for granted again.
Yeah, we don’t hear so much of that now.
I’ve commiserated with too many pals over cancelled plans this year.
And I can’t be the only one wondering if maybe it’s *not* going to be over.
That the virus will mutate again and 2022 will bring more fits and starts and setbacks and disappointments.
That we’ll find a way to do the things, but with masks and tests and quarantine and Zoom calls. With perspex shields and government bailouts and all that risk and worry that squats in the back of our minds now.
And that eventually that will just be the way we do the things.
Maybe we’ll all just learn to live with it.
If we’re lucky.
It’s a sobering old thought to carry into a new year but it’s been that kind of week.
Omicron: The twist in the tail of the Covid fight in Scotland in 2021
It was all going so well too.
This time last year we were slapping ourselves on the back after the Pfizer vaccine had been approved for use in the UK – a world first.
Produced in record time, the rollout was underway. Shops and offices were re-opening. We’d cracked this thing.
Coronavirus in Scotland – track the spread with these charts
Then barely three months later the Delta variant arrived to throw a spanner in the works.
Not to worry though. The vaccination programme has been a triumph. Eighty-odd percent of us in Scotland double-jabbed and half of us with our boosters already.
Let’s roll out the barrel and have that Christmas we promised ourselves when we all trimmed back the festivities in 2020.
Except now here’s Omicron to cough on the sprouts and upturn the table.
And if you thought Delta was infectious, you ain’t seen nothing yet.
The brutal efficiency of this latest strain has been breathtaking.
The first Omicron variations among Covid infections were identified in Scotland on November 29.
By today, December 17, it had became the dominant strain, accounting for 51.4% of all cases.
📺 Watch live: First Minister Nicola Sturgeon holds a press conference on #coronavirus (#COVIDー19).
Joining the First Minister today is Chief Medical Officer Professor Gregor Smith. https://t.co/dSijsYE8uz
— Scottish Government (@scotgov) December 17, 2021
The change in tone from the Scottish Government has been remarkable too.
It took just days for the message to shift from “Christmas isn’t cancelled but act responsibly” to “Stay at home because the NHS is in danger of being overwhelmed and our public services will collapse if all the drivers and teachers are in isolation”.
I went to the pub for a pre-arranged meal with friends last Sunday. We swithered beforehand but figured it could ill-afford to lose our business. Not while The Courier was full of stories of hotels and restaurants facing tens of thousands of pounds worth of cancelled bookings.
I wouldn’t do the same this Sunday – not now I know how rapidly Omicron is tearing through the Covid rates in Scotland – and I don’t know when I’ll be back.
If it’s an unsettling time for us, imagine what they’re going through on the other side of the bar and how long they’ll be able to manage without government support.
I’m still an optimist. I still have faith in good and smart and overworked people doing what’s necessary to get on top of Omicron.
But I don’t see Covid going quietly any more. And I wonder what superpower the next variant is already mutating and what it will take to defeat it.
Believe in decent people and better days
I’m still choosing hope though. That’s optimists for you.
Dorothy and her pals got out of Oz.
There were rocky moments and they came back to Kansas changed. But for the better mostly. And with a renewed appreciation of all the things they’d taken for granted.
Real life doesn’t guarantee a happy ending but if you’re reading this you made it through another year. That’s something. I bet you’re tougher than you thought you were too.
Most of us will do what’s asked of us again. And again if that’s what it takes.
We’ll change our plans and learn new habits. We’ll follow the advice and do what’s required to keep ourselves and others safe, even if it’s inconvenient.
Because if Covid’s given us one thing to be thankful for it’s the evidence that most of us are really pretty decent when it comes down to it.
And after Tuesday the daylight starts to stretch again and the darkness begins to recede.
We don’t know what they’ll look like, but we have to keep believing that better days are coming.
Read more by Morag Lindsay:
• Miners strike pardons are a mark of respect
• Drink spiking and a gender pay gap – will the next generation change the things we left undone?
