What comes next after Omicron?

I think it was the face masks I noticed first — the new discards of the pandemic, replacements for the thrown-away Tim Hortons cups we used to see. It’s the debris of the COVID-19 years, our generation’s curse.

The debris followed the time of quieter streets, worse in the lockdowns when children and their parents stayed home, and their grandparents were confined, alone. The mask debris gave way to protests, a demonstration of the anger about the pandemic: how dare it happen to us? Why couldn’t the government do more? Why wouldn’t it do less?

Face-mask debris and residual anger are two of the current traces of COVID-19, now called Omicron, since COVID has become almost a dirty word. What will the other residuals be? Here, in no particular order, are a few hunches.

First, there are some good things. Working at home is clearly more acceptable, giving more quality time to families, less commuting for the worker and less pollution for our planet. There’s more room for exercise, an increased emphasis on walking, for example.

There is the expanding nature of communication: cousins and friends from a distance can visit regularly using video-conferencing platforms like Zoom; I can talk to my doctors (note the plural, I’m getting up there) by phone; hybrid work doesn’t mean driving your half-battery/half-gas vehicle to the office.

Maybe there’s a bit less flu and colds, with increased attention to public health and safety, to handwashing and to staying home when we’re sick.

But then there are the problems of the post-Omicron period, partly caused directly by the pandemic, partly just prodded along by it. Among them, the most important, is the human loss — the empty seats at holiday tables — the aunts, uncles, sisters, brothers and grandparents, gone.

There is the loss of workers, witnessed by absent wait-staff, by low numbers of hospital workers, by crowded, angry lines in airports.

There are enormous supply chain woes, demonstrated by empty grocery shelves and now by rising prices. There is the risk of a financial meltdown. There is the risk of another variant, God forbid, one more lethal like SARS, and more contagious, like Omicron.

Perhaps the most insidious of all, there is fear, and with it, political heat, some of it even combustible, generating violence. Both American and Canadian capitals have witnessed what that anxiety and anger can inspire.

And now, worst of all, this lethal, famine-inducing, obscene war in Ukraine, perhaps nudged into existence by all the turmoil. At the end of his long table one day, a glass of Beluga Gold Line in hand, I wonder if the mad, modern-day Rasputin reasoned, “Hmmm. Maybe when they’re paying attention to what’s happening over there, I can invade over here …”

At this point, in the great scales of life, the good seems to be seriously outweighed by the bad. Outmanned, outmanoeuvred, whatever. In that frankly pessimistic view of the world, I wonder, what’s after Omicron?

In the Greek alphabet it’s Pi, just like P follows O in ours. There’s an interesting thing about Pi: Scientific American says it’s an irrational number. That means its decimal form doesn’t end, like one-quarter stops cold at 0.25. Irrational also means it can’t become repetitive, like one sixth becomes 0.16666. All of which is a little frightening, don’t you think? Words like irrational. Words like nonrepetitive. When I hear that, I hear not predictable.

There you have it. Pi, the post-Omicron period, some good, lots of not-so-good. Lots of potentially awful. What’s next?

I would suggest two things. First, doing what we do naturally as Canadians — being good public health adherents, offering kindness to neighbours, tolerating supply chain issues, encouraging our workers, especially the front-line and health-care folk. Perhaps helping Ukrainians where we can. And second, getting ready for an interesting ride.

Buckle up, you might say.

DAVE DAVIS IS A RETIRED FAMILY DOCTOR AND MEDICAL EDUCATOR. HIS AWARD-WINNING FIRST NOVEL, “A POTTER’S TALE,” PUBLISHED BY STORY MERCHANT BOOKS, LOS ANGELES, IS AVAILABLE ON AMAZON. SO IS “THE LAST IMMORTAL,” HIS SECOND NOVEL. YOU CAN VISIT HIM AT DRDAVEDAVIS.COM OR WRITE HIM AT DR.DAVEDAVIS@GMAIL.COM.