The world hit a daily record for Covid cases on Monday as more than 1.44 million infections worldwide shattered the previous record.

I don’t know if the Omicron variant is involved in this explosion or not, but so far the almost two years of Covid had spared my closer knowledge bubble. Until recently, Covid was something I read on the news and mostly happened to other people.

The Covid no longer happens to “other people”. As the number increases, the chances of acquaintances becoming infected have increased. This is still not the reason why I am vaccinated and “boosted”. I no longer have patience or tolerance for anti-vaccines which persist in persisting.

We have come to a point where the effectiveness of vaccination is evident and yet anti-vaccines persist in weighing on society the consequences of their selfishness. Covid does not happen to others. It is in everyone’s interest to participate in the fight against its spread.

As the second year of the Covid era draws to a close, we can afford to watch how we are doing as a nation. The cover of the Shift of the National Statistics Office report seems like a good place to start. The explosion of the Maltese debt (of 3 billion euros) gives us a clear picture of the modus operandi of the Labor government and its favors with a large part of the electorate.

What former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat left as a legacy for Robert Abela is a leech of public money. Day after day, The Shift reported on the cavalier attitude with which the Labor administration has renounced public funds. Take for example spotlight on the state agency Festivals Malta, yet another orgy of abuse of public funds for the Great Comfort of Labor insiders.

It’s actually fairly easy. Wherever the administration is supposed to manage public money, we find a record of direct orders, cronyism and leeches. Your money is used for charitable purposes – distributed in an undeserving manner, the only criterion being work related.

It’s not even about the power of the incumbents anymore – we have to take that for granted. Labor will win the next election. It will do this by spending your money to gain favors and votes.

We are resigned to accept that this kind of news will no longer cause a scandal. In the current state of affairs, our constitutional system remains undoubtedly perverted in favor of an administration built on cronyism. If we accept this as the major lesson of 2021, we can also add that there is another aspect that goes beyond the financial.

In fact, we can assess the state of the nation also from the reactions in the field of health and the environment. Two institutions essential to the functioning of a society are our correctional facilities and those dedicated to mental health.

Again, these are areas of society that we believe affect “others”. Therefore, our level of empathy in these areas might automatically be low.

Yet the evils that plague our prison as well as our mental hospital give us a picture of a selfish society that ignores the weak among it. Prisoners and the mentally ill are obviously not of much value to our political class. The rest of the population did not protest much either. The others will have to find a solution on their own.

Immigrant workers are also off the empathy radar. The appalling story of Ahmed Adawe Diriye, the Somali man who fell while working on the roof of a factory in Marsa on Wednesday is the last story that should put our heads down in shame.

Ahmed died twice. He first succumbed to his injuries after being treated as an anonymous person. He was later reported missing and it was not until five days later that the deceased anonymous person and the missing person were discovered to be one and the same.

The enraged commentaries under Ahmed’s story exposed the inhuman face of an indifferent society. We would like to think that these “others” who spit bile on the net are not part of the same society in which we live and yet …

Archbishop Scicluna asked our politicians how come we can tell migrants that we are full and have no room for them. Ahmed’s story is part of the answer to the Archbishop’s question. Our society is too busy lining up in the middle of the public purse, unaware that it is growing fat with its own money.

In a time of quarantine and isolation, we work with the impression that a lot of what is happening in the world is happening to other people. We couldn’t be further from the truth.