State of 2021

Avid-19 has dominated lives, economics and international distributions for the second consecutive year. At the end of the one who was baptized by many as “to avoid returning”, where the words were the disease, isolation, and social distance, 2021 began with hope but also uncertainty.

The world now had a new weapon for wrestling the pandemic, the vaccine! But what was baptized as the most massive vaccine campaign in history proved harder than anticipated, challenged by lack of doses, inequality in their distribution, population scepticism and new variants. After the initial enthusiasm of those who saw the end of the suffering on the horizon, it began to become increasingly clear that return to normal was still a distant reality.

News that brought an unexpected turn on the pandemic trajector came from Great Britain. It was in the country leading the world in the population immunization campaign, becoming a human laboratory, where everyone's eyes were focused, that began to spread rapidly a new version of the Coronavirus, which could be avoided so hard obtained by previous infections or vaccines.

He was baptized as a British version, or Alpha, spread faster than the original and had concerns that he could cause more serious illness. After promising citizens that with two doses of the vaccine, lost freedoms would be regained, Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced on 4 January that the country would return to isolation. It is clear that we have to do more to control the new version, while vaccinating as many people as possible. England must return to national isolation”, he said.

Even though they closed the doors to the British, Europe and the World could not keep the new version on the threshold, which soon became dominant, replacing the previous one discovered in Wuhan. But the enemy was no longer just one; now with the ability to change shape and content, it was introduced by new characteristics in high - level contamination areas around the globe. As Europe fought the Alfa version, other options were circulated in South Africa, India, and Brazil that were filling hospitals and mortars.

As winters became more and more difficult, with records of infection and death, of isolation, masks and social distance, countries began a wild race to ensure the only means available to escape the nightmare, vaccines... The first vaccines approved by regulatory entities, Pfizer and Bitonech, AstraZeneca and Modernna went first to health workers, the elderly and those with health problems. But in the European Union, the communication campaign began slow, blocked by supply cuts.

We want to assure our citizens that they will get their share. Production companies are told that they should respect the contract they have with the EU before exporting vaccines to other parts of the world”, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyeen meant.

The European Union had signed a contract in August 2020 to provide 300 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine. But only 30 million doses arrived for union locations in the first three months of 2021, up from 90 million promised. For the second quarter, the British-Swede company said it would provide only 70 million out of the 180 million predicted in the contract.

Lack of EU supplies was not a problem from which Great Britain suffered, which justified having initialled contracts with pharmaceutical companies more quickly. It would not delay long before the EU filed a legal indictment against AstraZeneca, seeking to activate mechanism that prevented the export of vaccines produced in the bloc's countries.

But involvement in the heated debate with Brussels, for supplies, was not the only problem of the company where Europe had been hanging its main hopes of escaping the crisis. In mid - March, the largest members of the union, Germany, France and Italy, joined dozens of states that had suspended the AstraZeneca vaccine after reporting that vaccine could cause rare blood clots. It took intervention by the European Trade Agency, EMA to ease the fears of Europeans who became even more skeptical of vaccines. Investigations did not reveal evidence of production problems. However, the regulatory entity did not fully rule out the link between incidents of blood clotting and the vaccine in its investigation. Later, he even acknowledged that fear - inspiring blood disorder was a rare side effect of the vaccine, even though he pointed out that the benefits far outweighed the risks.

A number of leaders and health ministers rolled up their sleeves to encourage trust in the increasingly rejected product. Many countries restricted the use of vaccines, large age groups, as data suggested that young people, especially women, were more threatened by the rare side effect. With the lame vaccine campaign, the disparity of available dose distribution, and the inability of the WHO mechanism, Covax to bring vaccines to poor countries, the virus again had the advantage.

The Delta version, first identified at the end of 2020, swept India into a second deadly wave. Exciting images began to come from the world's most densely populated state, with crowded hospitals, people being treated on the streets, and desperate prayers for the missing oxygen. The Delta version was more transmitted than the original and quickly spread around the world.

As the Delta version started running around the globe, the world was running to arm the population with vaccines. The vaccines produced by Pfizer/Bitetech companies, Modernna and AstraZeneca, showed high efficiency in protection from the new most contagious version, at least from severe disease. The many studies, they directed a single way to escape the nightmare of pandemic, and it was through both doses of vaccine.

But the immunization campaign was not uniform, and each country had its indemetable reality. The rich broke records of daily vaculations, and reported solid numbers of infection; the poor had not yet received the first doses, and were exposed to the ruthless virus. But in the midst of all this inequality, what equated everyone was the scientific conclusion that the pandemic would not end until everyone was vaccinated.

Amid signals that the virus would not escape in the near future, increased scepticism against vaccines, and fear of paralyzing socioeconomic life once again, the world began to find ways to co-exist with the virus. Partial restrictions were implemented around Europe, but unlike past spring theatres, cinemas and restaurants would remain generally open.

However, access to them would not be for everyone - and so beyond measure! Israel was the first to experiment with the so-called green certificate, which enabled the loose movement of vaccinated persons, who had recently been cured by Ovid-19 or had negative tests.

It would not be delayed before the certificate, or “Gren Pass”, was thought of as a solution to guarantee freedom of movement, granting the promised rights of the vaccinators and encouraging skeptics to engage as soon as possible. After months of heated debate, controversy and perseverance of tourism-dependent states, the European Union gave the green certificate a green light on June 1st, which witnessed the vaccine, healing, or negative results of the test.

The passport was a guarantee to preserve the freedoms, but many saw it as the symbol of their loss. From Paris to Rome, from Brussels to Barcelona, angry citizens filled the main squares to provide no health certificate and mandatory vaccination.

The anti- Kosovo movement was fueled by widespread distrust in government and conspiracy theories popular in social networks, mainly by far-right organisations. With the summer coming, the rapid revival of tourism engines, the vaccine campaign had significantly accelerated pace, the atmosphere in Europe was positive. Thanks to the security offered by the certificate, most of the continent gradually lifted restrictions on Great Britain, which it celebrated on Freedom Day in July.

In late August, the European Union achieved an important cornerstone in the fight against pandemic; 70% of the adult population was fully vaccinated. However, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyeen invited citizens not to let down their guard. Enthusiasm in Europe did not last long. By the end of the summer, infections had begun to grow dramatically, with evidence clearly showing that vaccines alone were not enough to curb pandemic. Of the high-level vaccine coverage states such as Israel, the US or Great Britain reported more and more “brekthahd through cases”, as were called cases of infection in people vaccinated with both doses. The question of how long the immunity offered by vaccines would last was finally receiving an answer. Science confirmed that antibodies dropped over time, suffering considerable contractions, five months after the second dose.

The pharmaceutical companies and health experts concluded that a third strengthening dose would be needed to restore protection at initial levels.

The third dose and vaccination of children, which were becoming increasingly infected with the Delta version, quickly became the focus of the global campaign in early autumn, when the virus had recovered and turned Europe into its new era. Pandemia is the worst in low-level inoculation countries in Eastern European countries that resurfaced in horror Indian memory. But even countries like Germany and Austria were repositioned to the first front of the battle. The vaccines had broken the report between the infected and the hospital lying, but they had not stopped the momentum of the coronavirus, which, as it did in 2020, became more combative during the winter months. What experts called “the unexcused” prompted larger democracies to move further to the removal of freedoms on behalf of the common cause.

Health certificates and vaccines began to become mandatory, while employees in the key sectors who refused to take the vaccine were suspended. Public anger erupted once more on the streets of world capitals, this time more violent.

When it was hoped that the Delta wave might be losing its power, notice came from South Africa that would once again shake the world as it prepared to convey another difficult year. Authorities there signaled the circulation of a potentially more transmitted version later baptized Omitron. The data suggested higher broadcasters, thanks to multiple mutations, and the possibility of escaping vaccine protection. That was enough to turn the zero point of pandemic into a number of countries that rushed to buy borders for African countries where the virus was recorded.

Science required 2-3 weeks to better study the version that had activated the alarm bells. But Omitron needed less to show the world his strength; his ability to spread at an unprecedented rate. The United States and Europe were involved in a tsunami of cases, while data suggested vaccines were losing efficiency.

Among the grim developments, data that Omitron is less aggressive than others came as medicine in the hearts of citizens severely tested by the health crisis. Studies suggest that sufferers have 30 to 70 percent less access to hospitalization. Yet, the unprecedented transmission rate causes fear of overcoming hospitals to be intense.

What was hoped to be the year of triumph over darkness and return to normality resulted in another painful calvar in the pandemic calendar. A year of alternate battles, from Alpha to Omitron, a year of freely restricted rights lost, and won with effort and often unexplored sacrifice. But it was also a year that brought hope; in the form of vaccines or success stories. It was the year of the restoration of human strength and the remarkable ability of science. The figure of pandemic has been ruthless, with some 290 million cases and over 5.4 million marked deaths so far. But with nearly 10 billion doses of administered vaccines worldwide, and some effective antiviral drugs available, we enter this new year's threshold, with a marked advantage in fighting pandemic.