SIT.REP. is short for situation report. This is a military term for a report on the current situation in a particular area. Like much military jargon, SIT.REP. is now appearing with increasing frequency in a civilian context.
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Last week’s news that a new COVID-19 variant has been identified comes as no surprise. This variant named ‘omicron’, yet another Greek letter, is potentially more dangerous than the ‘delta’ variant which preceded it.
Governments around the world have reacted speedily to this variant. Travel restrictions, irksome but necessary, have been introduced but already the variant, produced as a result of yet another mutation has spread around the world due to air travel.
Gordon Brown, a former British Prime Minister, but now a United Nations representative, criticizes some wealthier nations, including the United States and the United Kingdom, for grabbing surplus vaccines. Poorer countries have depressingly low vaccination rates compared with richer ones. For example, in Africa from whence the omicron variant originated, only 7 percent of its population has received the double dose of the vaccine which until recently was deemed to be necessary but sufficient to provide immunity.
Moreover, there are now disquieting reports which question whether the vaccine will afford sufficient protection against the new variant. We are now hearing that a “booster” is necessary in addition to the two jabs that were previously said to provide adequate protection.
History books, which discuss the pandemics of the Middle Ages, speak in terms of the “Black Death” outbreak of 1348 and the “Great Plague” of 1665. In fact, between these two horrendous outbreaks, there was a steady undercurrent of fatalities which were not fully reported.
Shakespeare’s plays which were performed in London in the late 16th century and early 17th (c. 1590-1615) were cancelled for the day if there were more than 20 plague deaths in the previous 24 hours.
Is it possible that we shall encounter the same situation with COVID-19? In other words, instead of seeing the end of COVID by 2022, as some optimistic politicians would have us believe, would we find that COVID is still around but not killing many people in 2022 and thereafter?
I fear this may transpire./PN
