It's amazing how time flies, doesn't it? Last year, this time, we were all so looking forward to the year we grew up looking forward to: the year 2020. The year of Wawasan 2020 which we learnt when we were in school. The year we visualised to be everything like science fiction. How funny it has turned out to be.
End of year 2019, some day nearing the end of December, I was having breakfast at Marsiling market before doing a visual inspection. It was that day, in CNA, that I first read a news report about some mysterious pneumonia that had emerged in Wuhan. I didn't really bother about it at that point because new viruses kept emerging, and the last full-blown virus epidemic didn't turn out to be as scary as it was first reported. Okay, to be fair, Zika was horrific for pregnant ladies, but it otherwise was fine. I lived through H1N1. A(H1N1) was also treated with extreme fear, reported to be a fusion of three flu viruses and people were scared shit. Few years down the road, it was reported H1N1 infected about 25-50% of the world's population and people have since stopped giving so much care about it. I thought it would be the same for whatever new virus that was being investigated. To be fair, I also thought it might just be some existing virus which they might not be able to identify yet. It probably wouldn't be nothing, or so I thought.
Then, it was reported it was a brand new virus with seemingly crippling effects. It hadn't reached Malaysia or Singapore's shores, so during CNY, travelling back to home was still expected. And so I did. Only when we reached the Tuas custom, we learnt that Singapore had since recorded the very first case on its soil.
CNY went through relatively quietly. Then I travelled back to Singapore.
One month down the road, in March, apparently, the situation in Malaysia spiralled out of control. Malaysia imposed a lockdown. Singapore followed suit when the cases in the dormitories balloooned.
And now, the first day of 2021, still no end in sight. The virus is still spreading. We all thought it would have ended end of 2020, but as it turns out we're still so far from it.
Well, news about vaccines have emerged and vaccines have begun being distributed. It's a silver lining, but the road to recovery seems uncomfortably long.
I crave for the pre-covid normality. What we have now is survival. It couldn't last. Fatigue has set in for many people, and this cannot continue anymore. The people are getting tired.
So, here's to 2021, hoping that covid-19 would cease to become relevant.
Happy New Year everyone. May 2021 be a better year than 2020.
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