Preface

Pandemic

In December 2019, we were booked on a Singapore Airlines flight to Taiwan for our annual retreat. The date of departure was on 11 May 2020.

China reported to the international community on 31 December 2019 that a strain of Novel Coronavirus (nCov) was detected in Wuhan. We thought then that this new virus could be like SARS of 2002/2003. It took less than a year to eradicate SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome). We were still hopeful that our planned trip to Taiwan in May 2020 might go ahead.

Now we are into 2022 and the global community is still grappling with this pandemic of Covid-19 coronavirus. Two years on and we have not seen the end. Our lives have been disrupted by lockdowns, social distancing, mask-wearing and fears of catching the virus.

I wrote in my journal of significant events and my feelings of living with the threat of Covid-19 for two years. These were collated in the following pages of Journey Through Covid-19.

No one knows when Covid-19 will end. I have chosen not to dwell on it and decide not to write about it from now on. Looking back on what I had written was painful. It has taken two years and a toll on my physical and mental health. This episode is like fighting a battle. It appears we are winning at times to be brought down to reality that we have a long way to go to get back to pre-pandemic way of life.

Emotions ran high and I wrote several proses in my journal on some days.

I hope to see Covid-19 as an endemic disease and catch up with all my friends and relatives as freely as before the pandemic.

Take care.

Lim Kim Tong 11 February 2022