Sometimes diseases can be great levellers. The outbreak of COVID 19 (Corona Viral Disease 19) that began at Wuhan City in China has now spread all over the world in a matter of few weeks. And if anybody thought that it only affected the common people, think again. According to latest reports, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s wife Sophie Trudeau has been diagnosed with the infection. The PM himself has gone into quarantine. Hollywood superstar Tom Hanks and wife Rita Wilson, UK’s Health Minister Nadine Dorries were tested positive while US Republican Congressmen Ted Cruz and Paul Gosar went into self-quarantine after coming into contact with an infected person.
The virus does not discriminate. It will infect anybody that it gets ‘in touch’ with. Young or old, rich or poor everyone is susceptible, though those who are aged or have diabetes, heart and lung diseases are more vulnerable according to Centre for Disease Control
.
The
has brought out the best and the worst in people. While the medical and scientific communities are working round the clock to contain the spread and find a remedy or vaccine, there are hordes who just find joy in spreading
offering remedies like the ‘magical’ properties of lemon juice mixed with ginger or garlic, drinking hot water among others. Now, I have nothing against lemon juice with ginger; it’s a great health summer drink, but it does not cure corona virus.
Thankfully faith-healers lost their edge after the head of a Christian church in South Korea became the reason behind majority of the infections in the country. Lee Man-hee, the leader of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus, led a prayer session to ward off the evil spirits causing coronavirus outbreak. Later it was found that 60 percent of the 4,000 infected (as of March 2, 2020) belonged to his church. This stopped religious leaders of all faiths to call off mass congregations and conventions.
While people look up to their governments for guidance, some heads of state make headless chickens seem better alternatives. President Donald Trump’s initial response was to appoint Vice President and his ‘political janitor’ Mike Pence to lead the coronavirus task force. A few days before that Trump dug into his ‘genius bag of hunches’ and said that he believes the virus would just go away. After 40 deaths and increasing spread, the president has ordered stoppage of flights from Europe to the US and vice versa. Well, it comes as a no-brainer as closing the border is his favourite solution to almost every problem.
When Italy and Iran seem to have winged the response and paid a hefty price for it, the government of Kerala was praised world over for its approach for containing the infection. Ironically, the state also has the highest number of reported cases in the country, thanks to its sizable expatriate population. And speaking about expatriates, a Malayali family based in Italy who came to Kerala, has become de-facto ‘patient zeros’. They inadvertently have led to the ‘second-coming’ of COVID 19 in the state and have also led to emergency measures like closure of schools and colleges (Only for students. Teachers still have to go to work) and theatres till the end of March. While the jury is still out whether the authorities at CIAL or the family were negligent in their duties, kids are having a blast and parents are downing more pain meds to quell the headache. If memes are to be believed, one of these overwhelmed parents will find a cure to this virus, so that they could send back their bratty bunches back to school.
I am almost done and here is where I am expected to wax eloquent, make pithy comments, wake people to the reality of life, urge people to look for a higher purpose, or maybe add some fire to the panic by declaring that the end of days are upon us. I am NOT going to do any of the above.
Friends, frenemies and future enemies and my dear trolls. Wars, droughts, floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, epidemics and pandemics have been going on millions of years. COVID 19 is the latest and there will something else after that. Only thing we can do is to keep our cool and a sense of humour (darker the better), and of be practical and pragmatic. Follow
and simply chill madi.
Catch up soon.
Interesting presentation of facts. Good work bro