ARE you suffering from burnout? Almost a year since the coronavirus pandemic was officially declared, the answer to that question for many will be an exhausted, "Well, duh!" Yet as we report in our cover story on page 34, while we may intuitively think we know what burnout feels like, it is actually a slippery concept. Originally used to describe people overwhelmed by work pressures, it is now understood to be something that can happen to anyone under pressure, even if it has nothing to do with work. And although burnout isn't a clearly defined medical condition, we still need to take it seriously. Burnout is intricately connected to other mental health problems, and, critically, its effects, which include feelings of detachment, cynicism and unshakeable exhaustion, make it very hard for an individual to take action. Hopefully our report will help, because for many of us, there is still a way to go in this pandemic before we can come up for air. Of course, one of the key problems we face, even as more vaccines appear, is that the coronavirus is evolving. Since we last covered this story in depth just two weeks ago, the situation has changed. We now have strong evidence that certain coronavirus variants seem to partially evade some of our most promising vaccines (see page 8). Vaccine companies are already developing solutions to this problem, but even if it is arguably simple to tweak a vaccine, it is yet another time-consuming hurdle for a vaccine roll-out programme that has yet to reach many (see page 12). There is a glimmer of good news in all this. It seems that many of the vaccines we have at our disposal do go some way towards blocking people from catching and spreading the coronavirus (see page 11). Even a partial blocking of transmission will help prevent the virus from mutating further once many people have been vaccinated. It should also help protect those, such as pregnant women (see page 13), who may not be vaccinated. In addition, it makes herd immunity more likely, and with that a path out of the current situation - and all the burnout that comes with it.
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