Lobnek Review & Outlook, January 2022

"Although our intellect always longs for clarity and certainty, our nature often finds uncertainty fascinating."

Carl von Clausewitz (1780 -1831), Prussian general and military theorist.

A year of déjà vu ...

As yet another pandemic year comes to a close, one can’t help but wonder if such a momentous disruption in our lives will ever come to an end, and even if the “before time1” is now firmly a thing of the past. It is that precious sense of normalcy that everyone is so desperately yearning for. Things did appear to be on the mend, if only for a moment during the first half of the year, as warmer weather and a ramp up in vaccinations appeared to be having a deleterious effect on the virus, such that governments began to reverse the burdening restrictions from earlier on. For a while it felt like “business as usual” was back, the services sectors that had been brutally battered as a result of the extended lockdowns and just a general fear of catching Covid, jumpstarted back to life and began scrambling to make up for all the lost time.

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