I can't help but remember the pandemic years as I write this. I am armed with the usual anti-Covid arsenal — alcohol for my hands, mask on my face, and — this is really an essential — still a healthy fear of the coronavirus that pulled the rug from under all of us in 2020.

It should have been a good year, with so many businesses planning significant milestones by the end of another decade. In the end, we grappled with our fears, global and personal, and we learned to move while staying stuck.

The uncertainty that hung over us was perhaps never felt by anyone else before except those who lived in constant fear during wars. Oh, wait — we still have wars; we have Ukraine and Gaza, as unbelievable as that may seem to be in this day and age. Humanity never changed its stripes.

We left the pandemic over a year ago. We were only too glad to be rid of the restrictive masks and mobility restrictions. We couldn't wait to return to the way it was, as some quite loudly declared; others countered that the lessons from that dark period (albeit filled with silver linings) should remain in our hearts.

Whatever the case, we eventually found ourselves wondering how much damage to the environment had been caused by discarded masks and PPEs, and what in the world were we supposed to do with the multicolored pile of reusable cloth masks, whether these were made of high-tech material or native textile?

Guess what — we can start wearing these again.

The Department of Health has reported new Covid-19 cases. As of this writing, "2,725 new Covid-19 cases" were logged between 12 and 18 December. The DoH's weekly bulletin also revealed that daily cases were 50 percent higher than the previous week's.

The past week also yielded 16 deaths, "13 of which occurred from 5 to 18 December."

These may sound negligible in terms of numbers or if compared to the height of the pandemic. In fact, DoH officials have told the media there is no reason to panic. The only reason some hospitals have said their Covid beds are filled is because the number of beds allotted for these cases has been drastically reduced already.

Further reports say, "211 severe and critical cases were admitted in hospitals, representing 8.8 percent of the total Covid-19 admissions in the country." Meanwhile, "12.9 percent of the 1,101 ICU beds for Covid-19 patients were utilized, while 18.3 percent of the 10,045 non-ICU beds were occupied," according to information from the DoH.

No one wants to suffer the way the initial victims of the virus did; no one certainly wants to go back to that time when an invisible enemy was holding us by the throat.

Still, people are no longer as deathly afraid — when someone coughs nearby, there is no collective recoil. When one gets a cold, it is treated as just a cold, never mind the reports on new strains and outbreaks — these are elsewhere and, ho-hum, that is so last year.

Yet, today, as I tap away at the keyboard muffled by a mask to prevent people around me from getting my nasty cough and sore throat, I can't help but remember a time when Christmas was also around the corner. In the first two years, we could not hug our elderly parents; we couldn't have the usual Noche Buena where a relative's house would be filled to the rafters, and people shared food and drink without hesitation.

In the past few years, we lost quite a lot — loved ones, freedoms, time…

But now, we can celebrate the holiday season with much more verve and a deeper appreciation for what we have now. Let's have a great time, virus or no virus. If we have to, then — mask on, if you please.