The mercury has dipped, the virus has proliferated. The intermittent precipitations of May spilled over to June with scarcely a sign of the heavy, incessant downpour – not that it is greeted with a plethora of warmth by city dwellers having to contend with water-logging, often of biblical proportions, despite the welcome  verdancy that the season ushers in — that normally marks the second half of the month. The weather pundits have crystal-gazed a patchy, below-average hyetal season. Be that as it may, the temperature has mellowed from a searing 40 to an agreeable 25 on the Celsius scale. On the other hand, the virus, — chiroptereous, our northern neighbour would have the world  believe — is raging in yet another avatar.  BA.2 to the virologists, omicron stealth  to the layman, the quotidian tally has been growing progressively higher. BA.4 and BA.5 are in the wings, waiting for carriers in South Africa to smuggle them out to the rest of the world. In a manner closely  resembling the spread of another virus from the continent, this of the simian variety, and one that WHO has declared a global health emergency. The hapless world waits with trepidation for another broadside, this time two-pronged, on a scale that has sent the planet reeling these last two and a half years. And like with everything else that is frustratingly protracted, corona fatigue has set in. Consigning caution to the four winds of heaven, people are venturing out with little or no precaution of respirators and social distancing.