Essay:What 2021 has taught us

2021 has taught us a lot, and as less then 1% of the year remains, I want to emphasize what we can take away most.

COVID
COVID is not going away, and this means we have to adapt to how to handle it. Vaccines began to be distributed in mid December. An infamous in the Northeastern US prevented vaccines from arriving for a while, which I attempted to add to Wikipedia at 17:26, 20 December 2020. However, the edit was reverted by Whywhenwhohow at 23:27 that same day. It barely survived six hours.

Over the summer, the Delta variant came out. Delta would plague the world for multiple months after that. As efficacy was reduced by the Delta variant, boosters were needed. They were approved in the United States for all adults on November 19, 2021. However, then came Omricron. Omricron came out on November 27, 2021 and quickly plagued both South Africa - and the world. Cases in New York City, near where I live, for example, rose to an all time high, and people who even had boosters got sick. This forced NYC to shut down all Apple stores. And, on December 13, Kathy Hochul put in a mask mandate.

Weather
No where is safe from severe weather. That was a harsh lesson taught to us in 2021. In the middle of February, Texas faced a massive power crisis due to the. Over 200 people wind up dying in the storm.

Indonesia is no stranger to tropical cyclones, but they are rare. However, in the beginning of April, causes intense damage there and in East Timor. The result? [https://theowp.org/over-200-dead-after-floods-and-landslides-devastate-east-timor-and-indonesian-islands/ Over 200 people losing there lives in the event. This also made it the 3rd deadliest tropical cyclone in the history of the Australian region.

Mercy was not shown in the summer. The causes record high temperatures across Washington, Oregon and British Columbia, and this led to a temperature of 121°F (49°C) being felt at it's worst. Nearly 800 people were killed.

Throughout the summer, extreme rain would also become a major issue. In the, over 200 people are killed. The causes over 300 deaths. Overall, over 920 people are killed by floods in July alone. The, while nowhere near as catastrophic, still caused a lot of damage in Waverly, TN, killing 20. At the end of the month, makes landfall as a category 4 storm in Louisiana. Damage was catastrophic. The deadliest impacts though were in the. Over 50 people are killed. The worst damage occurred in the New York Metropolitan Area.

While some mercy was shown into the fall, plenty of 30+ death events occurred in October and November. However, December would mark a real return to extreme weather. Late at night on December 10, and into the early morning hours of December 11, a of record intensity moves across the Central United States. The death toll stands at 90 people. 58 people die in the alone, an EF4 tornado that tracked over 160 miles through western Kentucky, particuarly flattening Mayfield. This would be the deadliest single tornado and tornado outbreak since May of 2011, and would make 2021 the deadliest year for tornadoes since 2011, following a year where only 15 people died of tornadoes before this event. This included only one tornadic death in April, and none in May, despite those months traditionally seeing the biggest outbreaks (albeit the was still pretty bad, and killed four people in non-tornadic incidents). Then, on December 16, hits the Philippines. Around 400 people died during the storm. Another Pacific storm contributed to the. Over 40 people were killed. And this isn't mentioning the potential for a pretty sizeable tornado outbreak from December 29 into January 1.

The internet
You can really never believe what you see. I can't list every example, and in a fair amount of them I would present a bias. One particularly infamous one I want to point out is. This RFA for a Wikipedia user nearly succeeded, as when it was closed, it had 123-1 support, or over 99%, well over the 75% needed to pass flat out. The RFA began when Eostrix accepted the nomination at 05:50 on October 17. However, October 20 would not be kind to Eostrix. After receiving two more support votes, Eostrix was blocked by the Arbitrarian Commitee at 01:00. The RFA was immediately closed at 01:02 as unsuccessful due to the block. Wikipedia was clearly shocked because of this, and it also worsened the ongoing problem of an RFA drought, as only 7 editors passed RFA in 2021, and one of them resigned after. Wikipedia is in a record long RFA drought, as there hasn't been a successful RFA since September 11.

Politics can rapidly change
Glenn Youngkin pulled off an impressive victory in Virginia. This was only a year after Biden won the state by 10%, which was the best margin for 76 years for a Democrat. It was also the first statewide governor win in the state since 2009. In the state of New Jersey, Murphy won re-election by a mere 3%. Biden won the state by nearly 16% just a year ago.

Political tension at extreme levels
Political tensions of the US were rising over the last 25 years and are unlikely to die down. Even as long ago as 2016, political tension is said to be at highest point since the 1860s. Now, it has only gotten worse. On January 6, Five might not seem like a lot, but it was all because Trump refused to admit he lost the 2020 U.S. presidential election. His loss was narrow (306-232), but nonetheless it was a loss. Also, 5 is equivalent to the death toll of the, an exceptional storm spawning around a hundred tornadoes in December, and killing five people in the Upper Midwest. It was also the latest derecho ever in a calendar year. Really, every weather event in December 2021 was much worse then expected. But back on topic, gerrymandering is also peaked. When you see gerrymanders like Illinois, Ohio, North Carolina and even smaller states such as Nevada and New Mexico, you can easily see what I'm referring to. New York could publish a 23-3 map, which would be even more egregious then Illinois. Texas might seem fair, at 24-13 with a competitve district, it is very racially gerrymandered as well, and voter suppression is a common issue there. This tension is likely to continue into 2022, unfortunately.