Optimism in these Covid times
The first thing I do when i get up these days is to check the COVID vaccination count. In a country of 136 Crore people, where 90 crore are above the age of 18 years, 2 shots per person would require 180 crore shots. As I write this, 26 crore shots have been delivered. I do a quick math. There used to be a time when we were delivering 25 lakh jabs per day and it would need 720 days at that rate to vaccinate all adults. Assuming that the vaccine will give immunity for a period of 1 year, wont it require the entire first year bach of people to be vaccinated again? I dont know. Maybe COVID vaccine will become a thing that we have to do every year. The rates dropped to about 10 lakh vaccines per day which really depressed me. These days, we are doing about 36 lakh per day. Considering the elapsed time, dont we need atleast 60 lakh vaccines per day to vaccinate everyone within a year? Maybe we will reach there
I am not vaccinated by the way. I was COVID infected in April and it it advised to wait for 3 months atleast before taking the vaccine. If some doctor can confirm that the wait period is not mandatory, I will go get vaccinated right now!
What I hopefully look forward for is the vaccine for kids. I have a toddler of 4 and a half years. What i really want is the schools and daycares to reopen. We are a small family of husband, wife and a kid living in Noida. My wife is a banker who never got the WFH opportunity. I worked from home during June and that luxury expired last week. I took my son to the office on Monday. He was surprisingly patient and i could work till evening. For the rest of the week, I wil be on leave, but still working from home - an agreement with my boss. Work demands!
I am really not good at handling stress. I fail at it so badly. One of the testimonials I received about a decade back was “being cool in most demanding situlations is his USP”. It is no longer true and I dont know when the change happened. Maybe I started taking work too personally, or maybe instead of growing up emotionally I went the other way. Work bugs me. Not being able to deliver 100% bugs me. The feeling that I am underpaid for the output bugs me. Not being able to spend time with family bugs me.
Our work life balance was pretty damaged for a very long time. My wife is a banker. She leaves by 9 in the morning. By the time she is back and fresh up, its already 8PM. Thanks to 2 hours of travelling every day. This goes on for 6 days a week, except 2nd and 4th saturdays. I start at 9 everyday, leave by 6.30 and reach home by 7 usually. The covid situation and the online meeting which is a by product made things worse. Meetings sometimes happens at 8 or 10 at night. Saturdays have become working days. As a parent, we feel we are being horrible to the kid!
Things were bad already, COVID just enhanced it
Update
I got vaccinated on a friday after waiting for 3 months from my COVID infection and couldnt get out of the bed over the weekend due to fever, headache, and pain at the injection site. I hope the vaccine really worked!