if 2021 were a kind of food it would be
the durian fruit the stinkiest fruit on
the planet but there's one thing worse
than an everyday durian and that's a
rotten one we're going to talk about
many things today from serial killers to
nasa's efforts to take out a killer
asteroid but we can't ignore the topic
of a certain virus so let's start with
that the economist published an article
the other day that said kovan 19 is
likely to fade away in 2022 but if you
look at what the magazine said a year
ago it was that the covet 19 pandemic
will be over by the end of 2021 it ain't
over till the fat lady sings as the
saying goes and as things stand right
now a new strain of the virus with a
name that sounds like a transformer is
on the scene the question is how many
more strains will we have to endure in
the future as we write this the world
health organization is telling us that
the omicron variant of the virus has a
high risk of infection on a global scale
so much for the pandemic easing up by
the end of 2021 it probably seems to
many of you that just when you're
getting comfortable and thinking you're
seeing the end of the apocalyptic
headlines you get hit over the head with
something new living through the kovic
19 pandemic is like starring in
groundhog day it's frankly depressing
when late in 2021 you read the bbc
website and see the who saying things
like kovi 19 is not done with us omikron
has an unprecedented number of spike
mutations some of which are concerning
for their potential impact on the
trajectory of the pandemic will it ever
let up it seems not just yet with the
who saying earlier this year that once
the greek alphabet has been exhausted it
might start naming new variants after
constellations of stars there are only
24 letters in the greek alphabet but
there are 88 constellations maybe if we
run out of them we can start naming new
variants after stars of which there are
only around 200 billion just in our
galaxy although most of them aren't
officially named one scientist said the
virus will get weaker over time saying
there's a limited amount of genetic
variation that a virus genome can
withstand and still remain easily
transmitted he said in other words a
bottleneck will occur and then during
genome replication it'll weaken that's
the good news but the bad news is that
it seems when the end of the year comes
around we will still be dealing with
variants that could be dangerous enough
to have the government announce more
lockdowns that mind we are sorry to
inform you that social distancing mask
wearing and even lockdowns are more than
possible for next year we know what
getting the virus does to the body but
how will lockdowns and distancing and
general covid's stress affect us next
year we promise we'll talk about the
lighter topic of world-ending killer
asteroids soon more bad news means more
stress this year numerous news media
were publishing stories with headlines
similar to this one u.s adults report
highest stress levels since early days
of the coping 19 pandemic and what does
prolonged stress do to the body it
weakens our immune systems can lead to
heart disease high blood pressure as
well as depression and anxiety and what
do some people do to deal with such
stress many of them turn to drugs and
alcohol as we said last year the news
media reported an increase of drug abuse
in the usa during the first lockdowns
that includes legal drugs too such as
alcohol in august this year the bbc
reported pandemic alcohol abuse linked
to depression rise the article said
people were using alcohol as a means to
cope with the lockdown the lockdowns not
only have caused an increase in deaths
as a result of liver-related diseases in
the uk by 21
but have also had immeasurable damage on
the mental well-being of everyone so
unfortunately what damage has been
caused by lockdowns will present itself
next year or over the following years
and because the stress of covid is here
to stay for a while it's possible that
much more damage will be done it's not
just the brits who are feeling the
weight of kovid though in october this
year an article in the landsat said we
estimate an additional 53.2 million
cases of major depressive disorder
globally an increase of 27.6 due to the
covet 19 pandemic the pandemic has not
only created new problems but is making
already existing problems worse earlier
in the year the media was saying the
billionaires of the world got 54 percent
richer just as most of everyone else was
suffering the hardships of the pandemic
the world bank in 2021 said covet has
caused rising poverty and widening
inequality on a global scale it's that
the poorest have been hit the worst and
they haven't recovered what they've lost
while the people just above have
recovered a bit but are still on the
losing side of average one of the
billionaires who had done well during
the pandemic is bill gates a man who'd
been locked down at times in one of his
palatial estates that have a total value
of 170 million dollars he recently
announced that we will get the pandemic
under control but it won't be until at
least the summer of 2022. still he said
people will be dying from covet in
smaller numbers all year it sucks to be
poor and we doubt 2022 will suddenly see
a change in inequality it will be
another year in which we see the effects
of job loss savings loss and general
standard of living loss which as you all
know can lead to mental health issues as
well as sickness and instability in
families some people turn to crime when
life has kicked him in the face more
than once one of the things we've seen a
worrying rise in is cyber crime the fbi
has said this all seems to have been a
trend during the pandemic stating that
from 2020 to 2021 it's on increase of 1
million cyber crime events think about
it more people have been thrust into
poverty meanwhile during the lockdowns
more folks have been doing more things
online such as buying stuff and doing
their banking not to mention the
increased number of people working from
home and inputting sometimes sensitive
data into their not so secure computers
it's the perfect storm the fbi said that
top crimes are online scams saying
scammers have been exploiting the kovic
19 pandemic be assured this will likely
get worse in 2022 interpol had this to
say about the rise in cyber crime cyber
criminals are developing and boosting
their attacks at an alarming pace
exploiting the fear and uncertainty
caused by the unstable social and
economical situation created by covet
19. staying with technology has the
pandemic helped push us further into a
kind of orwellian dystopia where big
brother watches over us human rights
watch warns us that governments might
exploit the pandemic to instate
authoritarian rule saying that we might
be walking into a kind of surveillance
reality of unprecedented scale and
intrusiveness while the usa has for the
most part pushed back against the use of
surveillance tech such as facial
recognition software the authorities
want it very much other countries such
as china and russia have already been
using this tech to monitor folks in the
name of stopping the spread of the virus
but of course monitoring us and telling
us where we can and can't go might be
for the greater good of mankind after
all we need to get a handle on this
virus nonetheless in terms of general
well-being people don't usually like
being tracked and traced and told where
to stay all the time as human rights
watch says any deployment of technology
should be rooted in human rights
standards centered on enabling people to
live a dignified life let's face it
though in 2022 even if you want to go to
certain places in the world there will
likely be some added restrictions again
this is for the greater good but it
certainly can't be seen as a positive in
terms of how we live all of these
problems will become much more
insignificant if earth is hit by a
killer asteroid and in october 2022 one
of them is going to get close to earth
well at least close in the astronomical
sense its name is didymus while that
sounds like a cute japanese cartoon
character even the asteroid's small 500
foot wide satellite moon demorphos would
be capable of wiping out some of our
cities if it struck the earth luckily
you don't need to worry too much neither
didymus nor dimorphos will ever come
within three and a half million miles of
earth which is over 14 times the
distance between the earth and the moon
but even though there's no chance this
one will lead to our own extinction
event nasa is still testing out
deflection technology options in case we
detect one that could hit in the future
earlier in the year nasa launched
something called the double asteroid
redirection test or dart which was
described by the new york times as a
1200 pound refrigerator that will
intentionally collide with demorphos to
change the asteroid's motion in space
this is a giant leap for mankind as one
scientist said it's kind of a big
milestone for our species like the
dinosaurs didn't have a dark mission
nasa says we don't have to be concerned
about the mission going wrong apparently
even if it does earth should be okay
since when dart makes its kinetic impact
with demorphos both the spacecraft and
asteroid will be over 6 million miles
away but just knowing nasa is concerned
enough about near-earth objects or neos
impacting us that they need to test our
ability to knock them off course is a
little bit terrifying even if didymus
isn't going to be the one to wipe us off
the planet as for killers of the
ordinary kind you've all probably read
the reports that said homicides were on
the rise in various cities in the u.s in
2020. we don't know the numbers for 2021
just yet but we might ask if this trend
will continue especially since we're
told inequality and income loss has been
on the rise it seems murder was the
crime that saw the major rise as well as
domestic violence with many other rates
of serious crime dropping the data shows
us that homicides weren't spreading out
more but that they were rising in number
in places where they already were high
homicide rates another very negative
effect of the pandemic has been its
impact on the rapid increase of
homelessness across the globe if
homelessness wasn't already a huge
problem in the usa in 2021 the seattle
times wrote an article stating a
recession following the coronavirus
pandemic could cause twice as much
homelessness nationwide it cited a study
which said this pandemic induced
recession and mass loss of jobs could
see homeless numbers go through the roof
in 2022 and 2023 and if life wasn't hard
enough for the homeless they're often
the prey for serial killers yeah we
haven't got rid of those folks yet in
fact in 2021 some media reported that
there are 4 000 unidentified serial
killers dead or alive in the u.s
although only 50 living killers are
active these are the numbers given by
something called the murder
accountability project we guess the good
thing about the increase in surveillance
technology we use will be that those
serial killers will have a much harder
job getting away with it experts on
serial killers have said perhaps some
guys get arrested after their first
murder these days but in the past such
people might have gone on to make a name
for themselves with the pandemic
decreasing the well-being of ourselves
and our society we can look forward to
another year of decreasing living
standards and possible world-ending
events 2022 might not be a great year
just because the world is still shaking
from something that first wobbled it
back in 2019 now you need to watch why
spanish flu killed over 50 million
people deadliest plague in modern
history or feel a lot better about your
current position with cannibal island
the real battle royale