Sisyphus’ curse
In Greek mythology, the king of Corinth was condemned by the gods eternally to repeatedly roll a heavy rock up a hill in Hades only to have it roll down again as it nears the top.
The ordeal no longer belongs to ancient books, but is a realization of the current blight of the coronavirus disease 2019 that the world just can’t get rid of even with advancements in science.
It has tested the endurance of mankind, which is battling the microscopic beast for now over a year, that had already numbed many people about friends or relatives dying prematurely.
Development of the vaccines brought immense hope at the start of the year that the global crisis will be over before 2022.
It turns out that most people were mistaken and the pathogen has merely mutated into a more virulent form.
Similar to Sisyphus, nations are back to square one despite the presence of the vaccines and are again pushing the rock of normalcy up the hill.
The world is currently in the early stages of a third wave, World Health Organization (WHO) Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus assessed.
Ghebreyesus said in the past week, cases of Covid-19 were increasing globally.
Moreover, “deaths are increasing again” after 10 weeks of declines, he added.
“The Delta variant is one of the main drivers of the current increase in transmission, fueled by increased social mixing and mobility, and inconsistent use of proven public health and social measures,” he added.
Ghebreyesus said “the Delta variant is now in more than 111 countries,” thus the WHO expects “it to soon be the dominant Covid-19 strain circulating worldwide if it isn’t already.”
The WHO head also slammed “a shocking disparity in the global distribution of vaccines” that leaves most of the world’s population “at the mercy of the virus.”
Ghebreyesus recalled that “many countries still have not received any vaccines, and most have not received enough.”
“COVAX can work, but the scale is still far too small, with just over 100 million doses shipped,” he noted.
From the start of the worldwide catastrophe in 2020, the word solidarity has been raised as the key solution in ending the pandemic.
When the vaccines, however, started being manufactured, the call for unity had been thrown out the window as most countries went on their own using their financial muscle to corner the available cure.
It proved futile. Unless the whole world benefits from the available sera, Covid-19 proves to be a more efficient machine in evolving into something stronger and more virulent.
Unless the whole world benefits from the available sera, Covid-19 proves to be a more efficient machine in evolving into something stronger and more virulent.
“Nations are back to square one despite the presence of the vaccines.