My writing is universal, intuitive and insightful without exception; it's a conversation with the universe. I include topics that affect all members in society on my blog. If the information is out there, you will find it on my blog. I am direct, I state the facts as they present, then it's up to you to decide what to do with the information. Perhaps it's a hard pill to swallow, for me too, because I am still affected by what I write.

Since the UK got Brexit done and in the global pandemic, attitudes have changed, it's been spoken about in the press. With my values based around 'spirituality' I am grounded and haven't changed, writing about the things I am passionate about, things I care about, for others too. The topics that are also difficult to write about. The global pandemic has certainly given me more to write about.

We are now into the fourth year since SARS-CoV-2, known as COVID-19 first appeared, initially as a new virus to humans, later as an evolving pathogen capable of slipping past our immune systems, infecting even those who've built up immunity from prior infections or vaccinations.

On 30th January the World Health Organisation (WHO) committee announced they consider COVID-19 pandemic still represents a global public health emergency confirming COVID will remain a threat to our health for years to come even as governments and the public move on.

Recent figures released by the Canadian Government and reported by CBC demonstrate that as of mid-2022, vaccinated and boosted Canadians were three times less likely to be hospitalised and five times less likely to die than people who hadn't been vaccinated. Yet COVID killed hundreds of Canadians each week throughout much of 2022.

SARS-CoV-2 keeps evolving

There is the suggestion that the virus could evolve to become fundamentally more severe, and capable of causing more serious disease putting a much broader spectrum of the population at risk.

Scientists say the current Omicron family of sub-variants continues to mutate in ways that make this virus more contagious, which allows it to better lock onto our cells and infect more and more people.

Vaccines' ability to prevent transmission has 'declined'

The world is now facing the most highly transmissible variant yet, and while vaccines has helped prevent severe disease and death, their ability to protect people from infection and transmission has "declined dramatically," said Akiko Iwasaki, a Professor of immunobiology and molecular, cellular, and developmental biology at Yale University and that will give the virus ongoing infection opportunities for the foreseeable future.

This concern was reaffirmed by McMaster University immunologist and researcher Matthew Miller, who is working on an inhaled vaccine. While updated vaccines are available to target both Omicron subvariants and earlier strains, Miller is concerned "COVID vaccines are increasingly mismatched to circulating variants." and that "we still need to generate better vaccines — vaccines that are longer-lasting and broader," he added.

Clearly this means that an ever-evolving virus we'll be playing catch-up in terms of effective treatments.

COVID isn't yet seasonal or predictable

Another challenge with COVID going forward is that the virus is unpredictable.

With more than three years of data and experience of COVID behind us, there's still no clear seasonal winter spike or a summer lull, but rather dramatic peaks and valleys in the early year, followed by a massive Omicron surge and waves of infections ever since.

We might hope the virus will eventually settle into a more predictable pattern, but that isn't showing signs of happening. COVID won't be the last pandemic. While the dramatic impacts of COVID will be felt for years to come, the dynamics of this pandemic have changed dramatically since early 2020.

For much of the last three years, hospitals and health-care systems and staff have been completely overwhelmed. Thankfully, the situation has since improved, but the key question we are left with is whether the world learned any lessons from COVID and the years of challenges still to come?

The WHO has warned it's not a case of whether another global health threat will hit, but when. In seems that pandemics are a certainty only question is, what they'll be, and how bad they'll be. (Sources: www.cbc.ca www.health-infobase.canada.ca/covid-19 www.covid19.who)

Conclusion:

Covid is the perfect storm for 'more virus storms' and that's on us because we're not doing anything to prevent it from spreading and we're not taking care. Is no one concerned about the new threats and what they mean?

The independents are not ignoring the facts that we're living amongst a virus that can make us sick, and that should be enough for us to choose to protect ourselves. Where the UK government have washed their hands off even talking about it, it should still be on 'governments' agenda.'

The virus will continue to grip the world and we have taken our eye of the ball. With the UK government taking Covid off their agenda, people have seized the opportunity to take it off their agendas too and don't seem to care.

But given what we know about Covid and the continuing issues, we should all be pulling together to support and be responsible so that we can continue to protect one another. It’s not enough to just settle into a life and ignore the global pandemic even exists. There is no normal life. That's long gone.

And like the Ronseal paint slogan, that says 'it does what it says on the tin,' with the vaccines, they don't. They need to be brought up to speed so instead of the current vaccines being increasingly mismatched to circulating variants, scientists reformulate the vaccines, so that better vaccines can be generated to protect us better, so that we have less chance of catching and spreading the virus. It is one of the reasons why not everyone will have chosen to take the vaccine. It needs to follow through much better, it needs to protect, so that you can't re-catch or spread the virus. It rather defeats the object.

We were told initially this could be the first of many pandemics and is now being confirmed, therefore, we need to be selfless and not selfish and act so that we may all stay protected from chronic illness and in some circumstances, loss of life.