People must not be lured into false sense of security
That the omicron variant of the coronavirus is not producing as great a public health crisis as previous variants such as the delta variant, has led to some voices, and not just uninformed ones with an anti-vaccine agenda, saying that the epidemic is over. However, that should not serve as an excuse for relaxation, especially of the measures which have brought the country to this point.
The omicron variant has proved more infectious than previous ones, but there has not been as much of an effect on the health system. This may reflect the fact that it simply does not cause the development of as severe symptoms in those infected as previous variants, but more likely is that it has been driven off by the spread of vaccination. Vaccination is not a guarantee against infection, but it does seem to act as a defence against developing the illness, and certainly against being killed by it. It is significant that only the unvaccinated are now passing away.
However, the death of Indian film playback singer Lata Mangeshkar should provide an object lesson. She passed away because of a covid-19 infection. She was aged 92, with her age alone putting her into a high-risk category. At her peak, she had dominated India’s film playback industry in a way that no one did before or since. Pakistan’s Noor Jehan achieved a similar dominance, but it was over a much smaller industry. Ms Mangeshkar dominated Bollywood, but she also had a vast body of work in regional languages as well. She did not deserve to be remembered as a victim of covid-19, which is unfortunately how she will be remembered. The epidemic had earlier almost regularly been claiming victims in all fields of life, particularly politics, where age made the large majority of leaders automatically high-risk, even if they were free of such common underlying conditions as heart disease and diabetes. Ms Mangeshkar will hopefully be the last.
