INTRODUCTION
Covid-19, the dreadful pandemic came as a shocker when it started affecting almost every corner of the world vehemently. As eagerly as each one of us wants it to end, it is a tough nut to crack. All brilliant scientists, research labs are continuously paying their efforts to curb this as quickly as possible but is it even possible till the time there is no proper “vaccine” and if not then the question remains, is this going to disappear completely? Or are we going to get into a period of cyclical waves? Or are we going to end up with a low-level endemic disease that is going to stay with us forever?
Where we have seen countries like New Zealand who claimed total removal of cases from their country around mid-June but even they still face a breakout of one or more cases after a significant number of days and it is continuous, we can hardly do anything to prevent it. Nevertheless, both physical distancing and immunity build-up are key to control Covid-19 but realistically there will always be leakage into the population even during the strictest of lockdowns. All it takes for a community to become vulnerable to infection is for one member to be infected and that leads to a breakout. All I wanted to say is that till this time we are optimistically waiting for a time when this will all be over but what if there’s no such time.
Most of us are hopeful of its riddance by the end of 2020 but certainly, there is no chance of this happening anytime soon. Going back to the questions asked in the first part, the answer is yes this maybe something which is here to stay without a fixed duration or it may end up forever. The reason is the same as no one had immunity to the new coronavirus when it came. “This pandemic is not going to settle down until there is sufficient population immunity,” slightly above 50%, epidemiologist Gabriel Leung of the University of Hong Kong told a New York Academy of Sciences briefing. Since the world “is far from that level of immunity,” said Osterholm “this virus is going to keep finding people. It’s going to keep spreading through the population.” And that, he said, “means we’re in for a long haul.”
We almost spend the last 4-5 months building up our immunity and still trying on because as hurtful as it sounds, this is also a common reality that in the future almost each and everyone will be affected by this. Caution and some level of acquired immunity can slow new outbreaks but cannot cure this in perpetuity. Here comes the play of “immunity passport “ or “risk-free certificate”, people who are affected once may not be affected again and are immune for a significant period because yes it is regulated by simple science, your bodies will develop antibodies against it and prevent it from re-infection. Although this is not scientifically proven yet we can proceed to assume this fact. So, maybe people cured of this Covid-19 are luckier because they are almost safe from this dreaded virus unlike us who are still trying to figure out an escape from this but here’s the thing my friend, why to be afraid, we cannot live our life like this terrified for the rest time left.
Then, What to do?, the most simple answer is, Do not be horrified because it just a virus-like some other virus, it may affect you or it will affect you and then you’ll be fine after some mishap days and by taking proper cautions. Because no cessation of this can be seen shortly, the first and foremost thing that we need to do is normalize the situation, it’s okay if someone or for the matter you have coronavirus. Speaking from the personal experience that I faced some days back, suffering from intense fever, cold, and cough which is normal in changing weather, I could see my family panicking the hell out of it. When these kinds of things happen around a person especially around someone who is already ill immediately breaks the person throughout and then how can you expect speedy recovery from that person. Why can’t we make this situation normal enough so that at least the person suffering could be strong enough to face this?
Certainly agreeing from the fact that this is something which has no cure as of now and is speedily communicable which again makes it one of the most horrific ones but the fact that is boon in the bane is that it has very little mortality rate i.e. 2-3%. Just saying that even tuberculosis or maybe road accidents in India consume a lot more people than this or have more mortality rate, while this may not be a good reason to convince otherwise but this can be a good positive thing to not be afraid of this Coronavirus. Looking towards the positive thing, we also came across the quintessential healing of nature which was never possible before if the Coronavirus hadn’t come our way because we humans were soaking everything out of nature.
If you started reading this thinking about the discussion of eccentric and quirky ways to prevent the Coronavirus, sorry to disappoint you but this was all about the basic and yet the most important thing that we need to do to confront a pandemic and that is making people stronger mentally which can only happen if people stay away from fear and negative thoughts, this was a bijou attempt to do that.
CONCLUSION
Summing up everything all I wanted to say is let’s not make a big deal out of the Coronavirus because maybe it won’t take much of our strength but the stress out of this fact will certainly drain us like anything. Let’s make people understand not to make a fuss about this very thing and normalize the concept of COVID affected as any other disease. Let’s not wait for the exact date and time at which it will be over but just start living our life bravely without this fear. Let’s just be prepared for the worst to worst-case scenarios and this staying us forever. Let’s just make ourselves stronger enough to fight this pandemic and most of all negative thoughts. Let’s just free ourselves in the clutches of life without any fear because the ultimate truth is, “We humans can’t control everything”.
Author(s) Name: Satvica Dixit (University of Mumbai Law Academy, Kalina Campus, Santacruz(E), Mumbai)
