The title is true for some definition of "near" and some definition of "here". Here in India, the official "second wave" now has been brutal. Just a few months

The title is true for some definition of "near" and some definition of "here". Here in India, the official "second wave" now has been brutal. Just a few months ago, nobody thought there could be any further lockdowns since the ones earlier last year hit the economy and livelihood of hundreds of millions of people quite hard. But here we are, with extended lockdowns for several weeks in many states. Unlike other countries, vaccine procurement wasn't given a big enough push last year by the Indian government. Some other countries were also good at vaccine stockpiling with massive orders to producers. By some estimates, [1] vaccinating a higher percentage of the Indian population (required for herd immunity and to keep the rate of new infections lower) would go well into 2024! The same is said to apply for the rest of the world. [2] I don't think reality would be so bad though. Ramp up will accelerate quicker with more producers lining up. But we'd probably be still looking at end 2022 or later in India for mass vaccination to be done. The cost to the society is quite high with lockdowns and restrictions (not saying that these are totally unnecessary). Anyone who's optimistic that "the end is near" would have to ensure that movement of people from other countries (with other variants and higher rates of infection) is prevented or highly restricted. That's easier said than done when the time frame is long. You wouldn't even know that there are new variants until they have taken ahold in large numbers. I have to conclude that the end is not anywhere near right now. [1]: https://www.business-standard.com/article/economy-policy/at-current-rate-india-will-vaccinate-75-population-only-by-mid-2024-121051901234_1.html https://www.business-standard.com/article/economy-policy/at-... [2]:https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/we-wont-have-enough-covid-19-vaccine-for-everybody-until-2024-warns-worlds-largest-vaccine-producer/ar-BB191Mdb https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/we-wont-have-enough...