Now that the Lockdown-2 has been announced by the government, the challenges to fight the spread of Coronavirus too have become manifold. True that the entire populace can’t be expected to remain locked-down for eternity as they have to move out to work, work to earn and earn to live but at the same time the same populace need to understand that easing of restrictions doesn’t mean that the threat of the spread of virus has come down. No, in fact it has risen much more. The reality of our times is that the virus may not go away and people will have to live with it. As suggested by World Health Organization’s emergencies chief, some time back, it is impossible to predict when the pandemic might be controlled as without a vaccine, it could take years for the population to build up sufficient levels of immunity to it and this virus may become just another endemic virus in our communities. He noted that other previously novel diseases such as HIV have never disappeared, but that effective treatments have been developed to allow people to live with the disease.
In this backdrop, the people need to accept the virus as a reality and as part of their everyday being. From past several days, we have been experiencing in alarming increase in the Covid-19 related death and the number of people testing positive. People have to take a serious not of this trend as it indicates that there is some sort of complacency and laxity on the part of the people in following the set precautionary measures. Stopping the virus even without medical interventions is possible and the trajectory of this outbreak is in the hands of the people. Once it is established that Coronavirus is here to stay, the people will have to seriously change their life styles. Social distancing is to be made a permanent feature of human life. Wearing masks is to become a necessity and avoiding crowds is what everyone has to strive for. Covid-19 has created a new world with new norms and to save our lives and lives of others, we need to follow those norms strictly. This goes without saying that governments in the world cannot go ahead with unrelenting lockdowns as these have resulted into suffering of millions of people who have lost their jobs and are striving to feed their families and themselves. It is exclusively every individual’s responsibility to fight and help hamper the march and spread of Coronavirus. People have to gear up to live in this new world where one more virus has been added to already existing infections. This new virus is more demanding and therefore people will have to follow the WHO guidelines in letter and spirit.
