Being an accounting of the recent and continuing pandemic and its various circumstances, from the perspective of an inhabitant of the regions lately called the Lost Quarter. Dates unknown.

Day Six Hundred Twenty Five

Yet again the Dread Lord Grippe Reborn has altered his guise to try to slip through our defences. In Africa they were the first to notice his latest reinvention. An alteration of form that scientists declared worrisome because it is unknown how effective our inoculations will be against it. Potentially it will give him even greater powers to spread and reach out to everyone across the globe, though it is early days yet. We cannot know for a few weeks how much trouble we are in. The fact that concerns are being raised so early cannot help but feel ominous.

Predictably, several nations, including these Dominions, banned travel from the nations where the new guise was discovered. Just as predictably cases were found in other places across the globe, including in these parts. The horse has already left the barn and South Africa and Botswana were just the first to realize it.

There has been seemingly endless talk about the Reinvented Dread Lord and the potential vast new powers he possesses. Yet we know nothing. It may be worse than the guise he adopted that has so devastated these parts these last months, or it may pass without incident. All we know for certain is that he will keep finding new forms for so long as we allow him. And he can do so as long as there remain so many across the globe who remain without inoculations.

That work, even here where we have more doses, is ongoing. We will have to redouble our efforts to ensure that doses are available to everyone and that everyone understands the importance of getting them. We are nearly two years into this struggle and it feels as though it has only begun. As exhausted as we are there is still so much farther to go.