We’ve been through this before. We’ve waited, from Tuesday to Tuesday, on the latest announcements defining what we can and cannot do. And, having had to live through this for well over a year now, we understood that certain measures needed to be taken in order to help minimise our numbers and keep everyone as safe as possible.

But here’s the thing, during our first lockdown, we did what was best at the time as we waited around for what we thought to be the definitive solution - a vaccine. So, cut forward to November 2021, most of us have been vaccinated and yet we find ourselves in this situation, one more time. We’ve circled back.

This is not to undermine the impact of social distancing, masks, or the vaccine on mortality rates. This is to say, will there be a time when authorities roll out well thought-out advice plans which are sufficiently substantiated and confirmed to be effective, communicating the science and reason behind why it is, even with the vaccines, we are asked to follow certain guidelines?

We all, at this point in time, know that this pandemic will be with us for much longer than anticipated and welcomed by any of us. It brings a constant air of uncertainty for future plans. So, my question is, is there another way we can cope with this?

Lockdown measures and advice seem to provide short-term results, immediate control of rising numbers. As we’ve seen, since March 2020, as soon as we start going back to relaxing the rules, numbers rise again and we end up where we started once more. It seems like we’re, unfortunately, stuck in an ongoing loop.