Learning from experience is an obligation for those in power. The appearance of the omicron variant has many people's hair standing on end and new closures and quarantines are already anticipated. In Colombia we also run the risk of going down that road.

Let us hope that we do not fall again into the dilemma of health or economy and excessive restrictions are imposed again, which could ruin the recovery process that is being experienced.

Colombia applied strong and explainable measures when very little was known about the virus and there were no vaccines. The results, when viewed in comparison with other countries in the region, are unfortunately not the best as shown in a recent World Bank report (A Disparate Recovery: Taking the Pulse of the Latin American and Caribbean Region after the Pandemic. November 2021).

The loss of employment in both quantity and quality, the increase in informality, the fall in income and food security problems, the social cost of deteriorating education due to closures and deficiencies in virtual access, and lower vaccination rates show that Colombia's results are not the best.

On issues such as income recovery to the pre-pandemic level, it is very sad to see that we are close to Haiti and very far from the best performers such as Argentina, Chile or Uruguay.

This is without taking into account issues such as the challenging fiscal outlook that would worsen in an unsuspected way if we were to enter another stage of closures and brakes to recovery. Covid-19 will be present, in its different manifestations, for a long time and will end up being an endemic virus that we will have to live with. Vaccines are the way forward. Although significant progress has been made, we are still far from where we should be.

Being vaccinated with complete vaccination schedules, getting boosters when necessary and getting used to wearing a face mask in high-risk places are the way to coexist with the virus while it becomes endemic. What we should not do is to repeat the path of excessive restrictions, as it has already been seen that this does not guarantee the desired results and may seriously deepen the social impact of the pandemic.