The yenka of the coronavirus, by Joan Cañete Bayle

How about 2021? Let’s quote Michael Corleone in an anthological scene from the third installment of ‘The Godfather’: “Just when I think I’m outside, they put me back inside.” This is how it can be explained this year: just when we thought we were touching our fingers to return to normality, the coronavirus has returned us to a public conversation in which there is talk of infections, confinements, ICUs and sanitary saturation. It has happened this way in each of the waves that we have accumulated. 2021 was born with the expectation that the vaccination process that began at the end of 2020 would serve to close the coronavirus book. The reality has been much starker than the expectations created, often too optimistic.

Taking a look at the evolution of the letters published in Entre Todos this year is to see that we have spent the year dancing the yenka of the coronavirus. It is commonplace to speak of pandemic fatigue; in fact, what spreads in the public conversation goes far beyond exhaustion. It’s frustration, it’s irritation, it’s pissed off. Left, left, right, right, forward, behind, a two three, the waves have been accumulating to end up in the same place, always to the sound of the Rt and the risk of regrowth. So, against good wishes and New Years resolutions, 2021 will not leave a trace of good memories. His final fireworks, on the back of an omicron, has taken the pandemic anger to levels never seen before. If you don’t know anyone with coronavirus, you don’t have friends, says a joke that goes viral on WhatsApp. It is true: the social perception that the covid is everywhere is even greater than the one that existed during the first confinement. In the last days of the call to be the year of recovery, the yenka have become the pandemic version of ‘Danzad, dance, curdos’.

Expansion and figures

The bad mood is justified by the passage of months and the speed at which the latest variant of the virus is spreading, but not so much by the figures (the previous waves, with fewer infections, were more lethal and health services collapsed earlier ) nor by the comparison with how we were a year ago. There is, above all, a capital difference: just a year ago the vaccination process began; Today, thanks to commendable vaccination levels, there have been 20 times fewer deaths from covid than if we had not had the injectable. Only this data should lead us to look at 2021 with different eyes, and rename it the year of vaccination.

If not, it is not only because of accumulated fatigue, but because of that gap that always opens between reality and expectations. The pandemic, especially in its first phase, created a huge amount of pandemic literature on the changes in social trends that the virus was going to bring us. The truth is that Little or nothing That has been seen in 2021: neither the generalization of teleworking and new labor relations; nor the design of more humane cities, tailored to people; nor the conviction that the climate emergency should be first on the list of priorities; nor is a greater awareness of the importance of the public health system; nor a social recognition of the importance of science in our lives; no more intergenerational solidarity; nor a more agile and resource-endowed educational system, halfway between the traditional classroom and the virtual one; nor a greater responsibility of our political representatives, aware of the need to work with unity in the face of the magnitude of the challenges & mldr;

On the contrary: the most powerful argument that the pandemic has incorporated into our conversation is the extension and, even, the legitimacy of irrationality, embodied in the unvaccinated and in those who oppose measures against the virus. These are not four conspiracy geeks: are enough for governments to legislate across Europe (the covid passport) and how to win elections (Isabel Díaz Ayuso) waving the flag of freedom. To catch it, apparently. Decisions such as reimposing the mask as mandatory outdoors do not help to contain the assault on reason that is planned, promoted and executed from social networks, without a doubt one of the most worrying features of these times.

Our youth

Related news

Beyond the yenka of the coronavirus, 2021 has been the year in which we have spoken of our young people as if they were strange, lost and violent (the riots due to the imprisonment of Pablo Hásel or the pandemic bottles) and in which the pardons to the leaders of the ‘procés’ in Catalonia only set fire to those who already leave home with gasoline sprayed every morning. Catalonia, as a topic of conversation, has adopted other forms beyond independence (the last one, linguistic immersion), but it is not a dominant topic. Yes it is the present and the future of the city of Barcelona, ​​which hurts many more citizens than those who sign the manifestos of the Cercle de Economia or set up platforms that are said to be unstoppable. The struggle for public space in Barcelona, ​​with all its ramifications, is one of the great issues of our day, one that is talked about a lot and with passion and that goes far beyond the figure of its mayor.

And like an underground channel, underneath the great topics of conversation of each moment, there are those others that are always there, that emerge from time to time if the current focuses on them and that are the ones who better reflect the daily pulse of citizenship. These are the letters that readers write to us talking about mental health, access to housing, the impossibility for grandchildren to become independent, the horror of violence and sexist abuse, the uncertainty of the self-employed, the emptiness of the unemployed over 50, from loneliness in the era of interconnectivity. That channel is not a yenka; It is the melody of our times.