• Question: Do you think covid will be part of our lives forever?

    Asked by JeanM on 9 Nov 2021. This question was also asked by DearbhlaB.
    • Photo: Andrew McGovern

      Andrew McGovern answered on 9 Nov 2021:

      In my opinion, I don’t think COVID-19 will totally disappear entirely BUT it will stop being a problem that affects our lives. As we continue to do things that fight off COVID like vaccinate and gain immunity from it, cases will drop. That’s the dream. As cases drop COVID-19 will become very rare and won’t be something to worry about. Where we will continue to hear about it is in the third world that doesn’t readily have access to things like education, healthcare and vaccines. After we have managed it here, we will still hear about it from those worse off countries or the rare case in Ireland.

    • Photo: Danielle Nader

      Danielle Nader answered on 9 Nov 2021:

      I don’t think COVID will be a part of our lives forever.

      However, Ireland is in a fortunate position where we have access to good healthcare, plus if we keep wearing our masks, social distancing, and get vaccinated + boosters, I think we are in a good position to get ‘back to normal’ by 2022.

      Unfortunately, this might not be the case for other countries that have poor access to medicine, healthcare, etc. We’ll likely still hear about COVID in those areas.

    • Photo: Dave Healy

      Dave Healy answered on 9 Nov 2021: last edited 9 Nov 2021 10:21 am

      I don’t think so. There have been lots of diseases in history that have had a huge impact on human populations and after a while medicine and time has helped to reduce the impact. Eventually, with vaccines and people taking care (e.g. hand washing, being careful when you have symptoms etc.) we will be able to reduce the impact that COVID has enough that the world can return to normal. This may take time, particularly in areas that don’t have access to good healthcare or don’t have good educational resources, but I’d like to think that in a few years COVID will just exist in the same way that other disease causing viruses (e.g. the flu or measles) do, and not cause us too many troubles.

    • Photo: Cyrille Thinnes

      Cyrille Thinnes answered on 10 Nov 2021:

      No, at least not to the extent it is currently affecting us. I believe that the severity of how covid affected our lives was because we knew nothing about it and how to respond to it in the very beginning. However, there have been numerous learning experiences, effective vaccines are rolled out, and treatments are about to be released. Covid may continue to emerge, but I reckon this will be in isolation, rather than at a global level, and when it does emerge, we are able to deal with it way more effectively than 2 years ago.

    • Photo: Ohood Alharbi

      Ohood Alharbi answered on 10 Nov 2021:

      Hi Jean,
      I don’t think so, and I hope I am correct.

      In history, there has been many pandemics before and it didn’t last forever. However, the effect of COVID will last in our lives, as we are adopting new norms such as working remotely, relying on online venue for interaction with human being, and schools are offering more online courses than before.

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