By Neena Bhandari

The incisive eyes of a Powerful Owl were staring at me from the last page of the wall calendar. The days had melted into weeks and then months. 2021 had begun on a note of optimism, ignited by a promise of vaccines against the novel coronavirus, but that ray of hope has been eclipsed by the lengthening shadow of new mutations.

A more transmissible mutation — the Omicron (B.1.1.529) variant is surging unhindered as we usher in another year of living with SARS-CoV-2. The omnipresence of Omicron has dimmed New Year festivities and disrupted family reunions, just as we were hoping life would return to some form of normalcy.

Globally, on an average one million new coronavirus cases are being recorded daily. Public health systems have been stretched to a breaking point. Doctors, nurses, medical laboratory professionals, pharmacists, scientists and the innumerable health professionals have spent most part of their waking hours over the past two years helping the world cope with the pandemic.

But as politics dominates science and mixed messaging leaves people confused, coronavirus continues its dominance. Vaccines against COVID-19 have been a scientific triumph, but unequal access has deprived the world of its benefits. While a handful of rich developed countries have hoarded vaccines to give booster and even a 4^th shot of the vaccine, large populations in developing countries have yet to have a single dose. Inequity in vaccine distribution has provided a fertile ground for the virus to mutate.

The Delta variant wreaked death and devastation, especially in India between April and June. We dreaded opening any social media platform as news of friends, colleagues and loved ones passing away due to COVID flooded every communication channel. Most shocking and heartbreaking was the passing away of Dr Ashok Panagariya, a famous neuro-physician whom we fondly called Ashok kaka.

The pandemic has been a lesson in coping with grief and sorrow; and also, the spontaneity and the fluidity of being. In our own way, we have improvised to meet the challenges that come with uncertainty and unpredictability, both accentuated by the pandemic. Amidst lockdowns and restrictions confining us to our homes, when and where possible, I connected with people in person to tell their stories.

On a sweltering summer afternoon, I met Keenan Mundine and a group of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men at The Block in Sydney’s Redfern suburb. Mundine is using his own lived experience of navigating the criminal justice system to devise creative and innovative solutions to help his people break free from the cycle of violence, police and prisons.

Indigenous Australians are globally the highest incarcerated people. Many are introduced to the criminal justice system at a young age, often incarcerated for trivial offences, and they remain in the system for life. Around February-end, the Australian Government was coming under increasing pressure to raise the age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 14 years at a United Nations Human Rights session. I wrote about how incarceration further disadvantages Australia’s indigenous people.

From Aboriginal incarceration to Modern Slavery, I connected with child trafficking survivors in the eastern Indian state of Bihar. Surprisingly, WhatsApp proved to be a useful tool in reaching out to people in remote villages and my fluency in Hindi helped break the ice. The children, cautious and hesitant initially, gradually opened up and narrated the abuse and torture they had endured from the traffickers. The article emphasised why rehabilitation is as vital as rescue for child trafficking survivors.

Globally, about 160 million children were subjected to child labour at the beginning of 2020, with nine million additional children at risk due to the impact of COVID-19, according to UNICEF. In neighbouring Bangladesh, Child labour was rampant in the leather industry, a study found.

LEARNING LOSSES

COVID-19 lockdowns led to widespread school closures so much so that the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) warned of a “generational catastrophe”, resulting in huge learning losses. I spoke to primary school children, their parents, and civil society from several Asia-Pacific countries to get an insight into how learning poverty had been compounded since March 2020. Similarly, students pursuing higher studies overseas found themselves Landlocked Down Under and elsewhere.

A United Nations report highlighted how gender bias was stymying women’s progress in STEM – science, technology, engineering and math. To recover from the pandemic and ensure that the most vulnerable have access to social welfare services, education and healthcare, Asia-Pacific countries will need to ramp up births and deaths registration.

CLIMATE CHANGE

With all the focus on COVID-19, climate change was relegated to the back burner, much to our own peril. The low-lying Pacific Island nations like the Federated States of Micronesia need climate finance now for climate change mitigation and adaptation. The CommonSensing Project was helping build climate resilience in Fiji and satellite technologies could aid Fiji and other Pacific Island countries to build climate resilience. Even as Asia tops temperature-linked deaths, climate plans were lagging. On the positive side, even though the pandemic has widened digital divide, it has cut e-waste.

The World Food Programme estimates that, in the countries where it operates, some 272 million people are already – or are at risk of becoming – acutely food insecure due to the effects of the COVID-19 crisis. I wrote about Ozone’s impact on crop loss, how food production emissions are harming health, and how the pandemic and its consequences have created a perfect storm for food collapse.

DISABILITY

2021 was also the year, when I feel `Disability’ was catapulted into the mainstream. Various organisations began offering disability services and supports and many publications began seeking writers with a disability for their “inclusive” career openings.

I wrote a series of articles on disability, with a focus on the National Disability Insurance Scheme, for Hireup’s News section: These included why are those on the NDIS charged more?; The difficulties Australians of Culturally and Linguistically Diverse backgrounds face in accessing the NDIS, which led me to investigate Is NDIS the gold standard for disability care in the world?

As the debate heated up on why people above 65 years of age were excluded from the NDIS, I wrote two stories on why we need to bolster My Aged Care to come at par with the NDIS and why did The productivity Commission recommend the NDIS not cover Aged Care?

These stories on the NDIS were followed by a series of stories on Aboriginals with a disability. Dr Scott Avery, a researcher in the Aboriginal disability sector for over a decade, who has profound hearing impairment, talked to me about why Indigenous disability units should be taught to change attitudes.

June Riemer, a proud Gumbaynggirr Dunghutti woman and Deputy CEO of First Peoples Disability Network, spoke about why Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people with a disability face numerous barriers in accessing and navigating the NDIS and what measures can be taken to ensure they receive culturally appropriate supports; and Dr John Gilroy, associate professor and deputy director of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Research at the University of Sydney, emphasised the need for Aboriginal-owned and driven research to enable Indigenous people to have a voice in disability policy.

Wayne Wright, of Kamilaroi and Wiradjuri descent who lives in Orange, spoke about how his people need to know that the person making life-changing decisions on their behalf is genuinely listening and not making the decision based on their own perceptions. Aboriginal people, especially those living in regional towns, face additional barriers in accessing disability supports and services that suit their needs.

CANCER

With three close friends battling cancer, I was drawn to explore a yet untouched topic of Oncology Massage.  How it was helping cancer patients manage and cope with both the physical and psychological side effects of the treatment and ongoing symptoms of their cancer. I also wrote about a novel three-drug, all-oral, six-month treatment that was offering hope to patients with extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB).

Among the feel-good stories of 2021 was Asian food warms hearts on Australian MasterChef. The pandemic has given us the opportunity to pause and soak the sights and sounds of nature around us. Listen, we must, to the chirping of common mynas; the shrill cacophony of cockatoos, corellas and rainbow lorikeets; the laughter of a Kookaburra, and the hissing of a possum.

For now, Omicron has thrown a spanner in the works to visiting family overseas. We need a comprehensive approach of vaccines along with other tools — masks, social distancing, and lockdowns, when necessary, to defeat COVID-19. Hope 2022 will be kinder, and we will be kinder to our planet and to each other.

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