IT seemed a long time ago when the Covid-19 pandemic first blighted the hallowed shores of our beloved nation.
In truth, it has only been about a year. Indeed, it also seemed ages ago that the government first announced that it has signed a deal with pharmaceutical giant Pfizer for our first doses of the Covid-19 vaccine, when in fact, that was only less than two months ago.
We are getting ever closer to the day we begin our own national vaccination programme. The first doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines are coming next month, and Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr Adham Baba says registration for the vaccine will begin soon.
He may not have given a specific date, but the news likely would have lifted the hearts of all who are affected by the virus, whether economically, socially or health-wise.
Yes, there is every reason to look forward to being vaccinated. Yet, we should not let ourselves get carried away. True, we can hope that the start of the vaccination programme will be the beginning of the pandemic's end.
Yet, we still have a long and arduous struggle ahead of us. For one thing, we have to remember that the first round of vaccination will go to frontliners and those in high-risk groups like the elderly.
Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Khairy Jamaluddin, in fact, has said that if you are a healthy Malaysian under the age of 60, who is not a frontliner, then you will likely only be vaccinated in the third quarter of the year. Or later.
This possibly means that the vaccination programme may take the whole year.
Since we have a long road ahead, what we need to focus on right now is complying with the Movement Control Order (MCO) and all its standard operating procedures (SOPs).
This is of the utmost importance, and though it may seem like a simple thing to do, it is not so simple in execution, seeing as how there seems to be, still, a lot of people out and about despite all the restrictions.
This, perhaps, is because there are more economic activities allowed this time around compared with the first MCO back in March last year.
Whatever the reason, that there is more traffic on the roads and more people on the streets is not too much of a problem, as long as we stick to the SOPs proscribed by the government. That is the most important thing for us to focus on at this very moment.
Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah says it will take four to five weeks of the MCO before we start seeing a drop in the number of our Covid-19 daily cases, and it may be up to May before the curve is flattened.
But there is a caveat: people must follow the SOPs.
Those who think we can be lax in our attitude towards the pandemic just because the vaccination programme is drawing near should think again. It only takes a moment of callousness for someone to be infected, and there are many moments yet between now and the first dose of the vaccine being administered.