December 2021

Throughout the pandemic until this month, we have known of Covid cases, but have not actually personally known any infected individuals. Within days of the first Omicron cases identified in the UK we personally knew people with symptoms, who subsequently tested positive for Covid. My wife and I have just named, without effort, 14 friends, relatives and colleagues who have contracted the Virus. With one exception all had mild symptoms, even those not vaccinated (yes, we know some folk who are anti-vaccers). The one more serious case was bedridden, but not hospitalised, an asthmatic who had received two vaccinations but had never quite got around to arranging the third, despite being eligible.

It has been a while. Life has got in the way; work, the loss of a beloved pooch and, of course, Christmas. I temporarily ceased noting life’s changes in response to the pandemic. Indeed there were few additional changes of note. This was how living with Covid should be; life continuing, with an undercurrent of Covid, a backdrop to life’s events, influencing what we do, but not changing it. At least that was the situation until last month. And then the journey to normality hit a pothole, a reminder that the road was not necessarily smooth, and that we should still take care.

This diary was intended to be a personal record of events to be looked back on when all was over. This is not going to happen anytime soon, and I shall continue to record any changes to Life Under Covid. But I look back at entries from 2020, with its queues and panic buying, people, including me, working entirely from home, and socialising by Zoom, with some of us really missing a hand-pulled pint, and compare with 2021, with a vaccination programme offering a brighter future, social, retail and work life returning to normal, albeit with some steps backward. A new variant assaults us, but on the whole we cope admirably.