Two years have passed since the first news that informed us of the outbreak of a virus (SARS-COV-2) in the Chinese town of Wuhan. At that time, few could imagine the consequences of a pandemic (thus described by the World Health Organization on March 14, 2020) that would end up affecting the entire planet and that according to recent WHO data has already infected 300 million people and has caused 5.5 million deaths. The “greatest health emergency” in 100 years, as declared to EL PERIÓDICO Salvador Illa, who was the highest responsible for health in the country as Minister of Health. A pandemic of which, in the words of whoever was also at the forefront of the crisis in Catalonia, the ‘councilor’ Alba Vergés, “it was impossible to see the magnitude.”
From the week of March 9 to 15, 2020, when the first state of alarm was decreed, and throughout these two years, we have suffered, as a society, a tremendous blow, which has had multiple derivatives. Obviously, the one that affects health, but also the economic, social and political. Looking back means remembering the first months of total confinement, with highly dramatic situations (especially with regard to the geriatric residences and the continuous drip of deaths) and with a general confusion of the population that, in all this time, has also caused an increase in mental illnesses and serious psychological problems.
The health system – which was already low due to budget cuts – has been thrown into extreme situations, with great hospital pressure, in ICUs but also in Primary Care Centers (CAP), as has been shown in the sixth wave in which we are immersed by the omicron variant. Society stood still for a long period in which both political management (with criticizable episodes of disorganization and the appearance of the judicial factor to further complicate the matter) was put to the test. the resilience of citizens. Afterwards, we have experienced continuous ups and downs, largely overcome both by the speed in the preparation and supply of vaccines, a determining fact, and by the general awareness of the need to incorporate prevention into daily habits. It is true that, at the same time, they have highlighted denialist and anti-vaccine movements that, in certain countries, have been a serious problem of coexistence. And it is also true that this pandemic will not have a clear end until a high percentage of vaccination can be reached worldwide. The figures in the Third World are not only scandalous in themselves, but also because of the latent danger of the appearance of new variants.
The pandemic has represented a worsening of the gap between rich and poor countries and has also had a significant impact on the evolution of the economy. One of the challenges, through the community funds of the NextGenerationUE program, It is to recover the social pulse and to think that one of the lessons that we can extract is the safeguarding of the welfare state through greater investments in health and medical research.
Even immersed in a delicate chapter of the pandemic, and without being able to visualize the end of it, We have already learned enough to deal with it. More science, more transparency, more unity without ideological rivalries and more awareness of being immersed in a battle that can only be won with collective spirit of collaboration.
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