“ HAVE WE LEARNT ANY LESSON(S) FROM COVID -19 ? “-DR. ASHWANI K. MALHOTRA
What happens when all of a sudden you are forced to live within the four walls of your house, PG or hostel, without any movement outside for weeks except in a medical or other emergency?
What do you feel when you are left without work or job and when you have to live in constant fear and anxiety, whenever you or some someone close is having fever or coughs and sneezes?
And all due to a microscopic virus that originated in China and spread rapidly infecting and killing millions around the world.
You probably think- kahin mujhe corona to nahin ho gaya ( Will I suffer from Corona too) ?
Ever since the Covid-19 virus struck mankind a year ago and WHO declared it as a pandemic, we all in the world have been affected by the virus and our lifestyles have changed dramatically.
The Covid-19 pandemic has taught many invaluable lessons.
- We have learnt to live in isolation for weeks without physical contact with the outside world.
- We have learnt to be patient and stand in queues.
- We have learnt about coughing etiquette and that spitting, coughing and sneezing in public could help in the spread of the virus and that a mask, physical distancing and avoiding crowded places help in preventing the spread to others.
- We have learnt to cook and clean our homes on our home. Yes we even cleaned our loos!
- We have learnt the meaning of a family and our interpersonal relations with our spouse and children have improved. Now the wife gets so irritated when I poke my nose into the household affairs and she retorts,” sab mard ab kaam pe jaane lage hain. Ek tum ho saara din ghar pe pade rahte ho.( All men have now started working, But you are at home all day.)” How Do I tell her that I have retired and to let me live and relax.
- Our children have learnt to study on their computers. Even I have learnt so much in working on the computer, but I have still to learn a lot from my grandchildren who are more computer savv
- We all have learnt to pursue our hobbies. Yes sir, haven’t we all started painting, singing and dancing. The wife used to watch the recipes on YouTube and make exotic dishes. No wonder my waistline increased and now she pesters me all the time to reduce it.
BUT NO SIR, WE STILL NEED TO LEARN SOMETHING CRUCIAL:
- Even after months, have we really learnt any lessons from this pandemic? No, sorry to say, we are back to our old ways of breaking queues, littering and creating chaos and traffic jams on the roads.
- Even as the World Health Organization has in its latest advisory has advised us to keep wearing masks and maintain physical distance from one another, to avoid the crowded places and to venture out in well ventilated and open areas, I find that people have become complacent.
- The other day when I went to the market on an errand by the wife, I was shocked to see quite a few people neither wearing a mask nor were they maintaining the social distance. When I quipped someone in a shop as to why he wasn’t wearing a mask he replied unabashedly, ” O bauji, sanu corona nahin hunda (O Man, corona doesn’t infect us).”
Visuals and news reports are full of people breaking the norms issued by the Government not only in India but in other countries too!
Though the daily count of corona positives and number of fatalities have decreased, reports from the United States where positive cases in a day exceeded 2 lacs.
The vaccine against Corona virus may just be a few weeks or a few months away, yet in the meantime we must ensure personal safety so that the virus does not spread further.
Dr Ashwani K. Malhotra MBBS, PGDMCH, PGDMLS, is a retired Senior Medical Officer,Punjab Government,and can be reached @M-9417188867 E-mail : ashwini.doc.1954@gmail