This time last year, who would have thought that at this time this year, we’d still be in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Positive COVID-19 cases are still high, and now a new variant has emerged that at the moment we don’t know how easily transmitted it is, whether being fully vaccinated will protect us, or how serious some will be affected by this new variant. Another year on, and still Christmas this year and the days which follow are still uncertain.
This news can really bring us down, making us wonder when our lives will ever be free again to live and move about freely, without need to wear protective masks, or other protective clothing/apparel, to protect us from COVID infection. Do you think we’ll ever get back to a day like that?
I don’t know about you, but I thought the COVID vaccine was going to give us that hope of ‘getting back to normal’ again, long before Christmas this year. But again unfortunately that hasn’t been the case because of the way the virus has evolved, and new variants have emerged and proved tricky to contain.
But there is good news in all of this, many lives have been saved because of restrictions and vaccination, although maybe more could have been done sooner to prevent more deaths? Just dropping that in there, but I’m not going to get into a debate about whether restrictions and/or the vaccination programme, was right or wrong or done at the right time – I’ll leave those discussions to others.
There is even better news, even although since March 2020 when in the UK we first went Ito lockdown, and our lives have been turned upside-down in that time, there is still hope for us, for our future, and that is all because of why we celebrate Christmas every year…hope is ours today because the baby Jesus was born in a manager on that very first Christmas morn.
You're still the hope of Christmas You're still the light when the world looks dark You're still the hope of Christmas And You're still the hope of my heart
The Distinct Dot 