Pandemic 2022: Destined to Be Even More Grim Than 2021?

As 2022 begins, the outlook is undeniably bleak. The pandemic that began in 2020 continues without any effective hindrance, and Omicron, the latest, most contagious variant of Covid-19, has quickly become rampant everywhere. Conditions keep getting worse because, over the past year, our capitalist leaders have been thoroughly unwilling to enact the necessary measures (which are usually referred to, negatively, as "restrictions") that could actually help to decrease the spread of Covid-19. Instead, they prefer to promote only pharmaceutical remedies, thus ensuring an ongoing situation in which repeated waves of unchecked infection are allowed to prevail.

What our leaders have displayed during the last twelve months is not merely an extended instance of poor leadership, but rather, something much more shameless and much more heinous: a total absence of ethics and a careless lack of concern for human life. Given that in capitalism, all outcomes are determined by ruthless greed, and given that our leaders are unrepentant capitalists and therefore prone to the dangerous habit of short-term thinking, it is hardly surprising that they have chosen to throw us into such a hopeless state of affairs. From the start of the pandemic, it has been repugnantly clear that their main worry was to avoid losing money, not to avoid losing precious lives.

Millions have already perished worldwide, and the dreadful numbers are increasing with each passing day. Meanwhile, our leaders remain wilfully dedicated to furthering the corrupt interests of wealthy corporations, even if it results in a permanent curse of illness and hardship for humanity. They are blithely unmoved by the needless suffering that their immoral policies have created, coldly refusing to abandon their fraudulent claim that vaccines alone are sufficient to control the headlong progress of Covid-19, and are loath to take any action that might detract from the usual process of corporate business, regardless of how desperately those actions are needed.

Where do we go from here? Is 2022 destined to be even more grim than 2021? Can there be a worthwhile future for us beyond the pandemic? Is there still time for us to take firm hold of our collective welfare, to turn away from our wrongful course, to find a rational path that leads toward safety and stability? In all honesty, the current signs are not especially promising. Our reprehensible leaders appear to have no qualms about pushing us closer and closer to a final downfall, and the overall mood of the public has, unmistakably and alarmingly, become more and more reckless. So far the 21st century is not going well, and it seems likely that the worst is yet to come.