Is everyone cheered by news of a vaccine?

IF you listened closely you could hear the sighs of disappointment. It was the worst possible news, the bulletin they’d be dreading. It wasn’t supposed to end like this, certainly not this early. The scientists had said it’d be at least two years.

But here was Pfizer, all proud and preening, with their vaccine, their magic elixir; ready to lift us out of this pandemic by the middle of next year.

Sure, that’s no good, we’ve hardly scratched the surface, there’s load more misery and woe to spread round yet.

Well, I’m sorry Covid-addicts, we’re in the home-stretch now. Better days are ahead, you’re just going to have to get your fix somewhere else.

Yes, I’m being facetious, well spotted. No-one in their right mind could have been disappointed by Pfizer’s announcement - apart from perhaps anti-vaxxers and Covid-deniers (do they qualify as being right of mind?) - and it has given the nation a welcome boost as we face into the most solemn of Christmases.

But just what will the large mass of people who have made Covid their life do when this pandemic ends? I’m not talking about the medical professionals, about the laboratory scientists or the merry-go-round of experts who make sense of each new and foreboding development.

I’m not even talking about the journalists, the people like me who have been writing and reporting about this behemoth of a news story for the past eight months. No, I’m talking about the other experts, you know the ones, the Facebook svengalis, the Twitter gurus, who have been in their absolute element since this all began.

These are the people who, even now, build their day around the latest figures, who take to social media as soon as they’re announced, posting them with a crying emoji, an angry-face, depending on the national mood.

The people who scrutinise those figures, scrutinise the hell out of them, to see if there’s been a mistake, the people who know exactly how many ICU beds are in the country, in which hospitals they’re located and when the sheets were last changed.

If Fergal Bowers happens to impart figures which don’t tally up, which don’t match the spreadsheet they’ve created these people call for his head, for anyone’s head, just a head on a stick will do.

These are also the people who campaign vigorously for the sacking of anyone associated with anything might contravene the Twelve Commandments of Covid. Those who attended the golf dinner in Clifden have rightly been pilloried for their actions, but for the Covid-addicts that’s not enough.

They want every young person rounded up and flogged, every person who attended a house party in the last eight months to be burned at the stake, and everyone who enters a shop not wearing a mask to be hung, drawn and quartered.

These are also the people who, upon hearing of a social gathering within 5 km of their home, race to the scene of the crime, phone ready to record, so they can ‘out’ these heartless heathens. Upon completing their task, they breathlessly upload their video to social media - usually alongside a few lines condemning humanity for eternity.

If every single one of those people had lost someone due to Covid-19, or had even lost their livelihood due to Covid-19, I could understand it.

But those most impacted by this pandemic have more important concerns. They’re not on social media every evening, giving out yards in the Facebook comments, they’re mourning, trying to figure out how to pay next month’s rent, trying to piece back together lives which have been shattered by this deadly disease. No, the Covid-addicts are a different breed, a subset of society who appear to thrive on bad news, who are only ever happy when they’re unhappy, and have used a global pandemic to bring meaning to their lives.

Outrage is their go-to emotion, the state of mind which brings them closest to fulfilment. Each house party, each video of a jubilant hurling team, a politician speaking out of turn, causes them to rise up on their two hind legs, fluff up their feathers and spit venom. So yes, they’re the people I’m worried about. How are they going to cope when this is all over? Then again the vaccine is only 90 per cent effective.