Greetings, everyone, welcome to this live broadcast!
We hesitate to offer festive greetings, but our intentions are genuine… Our hopes from the previous year proved unfounded. Let’s be frank… So, for the year 2022, let’s jointly aspire that, twelve months from now, this live update dedicated to the COVID-19 pandemic globally and domestically will be a distant recollection.
Until that time, we will monitor both significant and less crucial developments.
The opening of this broadcast poignantly reflects the global sentiment in early 2022 regarding the COVID-19 pandemic. The hope for a swift end to the crisis, expressed with hesitant festive cheer, underscores the pervasive uncertainty and exhaustion felt worldwide. The acknowledgement that previous hopes were unfounded sets a realistic and somber tone for the year ahead.
The broadcast’s focus on monitoring both “significant and less crucial developments” hints at the multifaceted nature of the pandemic’s impact. While the immediate concern was the ongoing spread of the virus and its associated mortality – with preliminary estimates suggesting a far higher death toll than officially reported [[2]] – the long-term consequences were also beginning to emerge. The World Health Organization’s report of a 25% increase in the global prevalence of anxiety and depression in the first year of the pandemic [[1]] highlighted the significant mental health burden. This foreshadows the need to monitor not only the epidemiological trajectory of the virus but also its wider societal impacts, as hinted at in the broadcast. The WHO’s role in coordinating the global response, including research, guidance, vaccine distribution, and monitoring case numbers [[3]], is implicitly acknowledged in the broadcast’s intention to track developments. The broadcast’s framing, therefore, paints a picture of a world still grappling with a complex and evolving crisis, needing constant vigilance and a multifaceted solution.
