Corona - My understanding of what is going on and how I am making sense of it.

Why is it instilling fear and dread?

There are a few reasons for it.
One, because it is new. None of us has suffered from it and our immunity system has not fought it before. Plague killed millions in the past and managed to instill fear in the hearts of many. To me, this seems like another version of the plague - Plague of the modern age. There are other communicable and non-communicable diseases which are killing people every day, but we know about them and hence we worry less.

Two, because there is no medicine to either prevent it or cure it. Without a fail-safe net, this feels like a free fall. Once you are sick, only your immunity system has to fight it off. Not all of us are strong enough to do that.

Three, because it can spread easily. HIV is deadly but it doesn’t spread through a sneeze. This, because is a respiratory disease – affecting our breathing system, (virus in our nose, throat and lungs) – spreads with a sneeze and a cough. Sneeze and cough have mostly been harmless till date and all of a sudden have turned deadly. Also, the virus in the droplets can survive outside quite easily and for quite a long time. Hence making it easier to spread. Difficult to contain.

Four, it reaches a critical state soon. Even though HIV is a death sentence, people manage to live with the disease for years. That is not the case with Corona. It gets serious soon and kills people fast.

Five, anyone can catch it. It is not a poor people or poor country disease. Some diseases are; and we manage to get a good night’s sleep. May be because it is out of sight and out of mind, or because we know we may not get those diseases and even if we do, we can get better because we have the resources. COVID 19 is not a country or ethnic origin centered disease. It has crossed borders easily and has affected the rich, the famous and the powerful.

Six, senior citizens, children, and people with pre-existing conditions are at a higher risk of getting affected severely. Generally people with weak immune systems will see the harsher side of the illness. We generally don’t have a report giving us an understanding of how good our immune system is. Anyone can succumb to death due to this illness.

Wasn’t social distancing enough? Why the lockdown?

If we lived in a world where we can maintain 6 feet or more distance from any other individual at any given point, if we could keep our face covered all the time, if we all had access to soap and water and could wash our hands for 20 seconds whenever we want, then, maybe, it would have been enough.
We are a lot of people in limited space. Our public transport is always crowded. Water and soap are not always available and we cannot take our hygiene practices for granted. So, social distancing is not enough. One mistake – touching your face with unwashed hands – one accident, one chance encounter with the virus can put a lot of lives at risk. Because we can be asymptomatic for 15 days and still spread the virus, social distancing alone is not enough. Also, because it is impossible to test 1.3 billion people in India or 8 billion in the world, deliberate measures have to be taken to contain the spread.

As the virus arrived, we were able to track who had it and to whom it could have been transferred. But, people go off the radar, travel in crowded buses and have spread the virus. Once we reach a stage where we don’t know how one has got the virus, lock down is the only way to stop further spread.

During these 21 days, initially, we will see a peek in the number of people who have contracted the virus. We will discover many cases because they might have got infected before the lockdown. If the lockdown is successful, then, the numbers will start to drop by the third week.

Are 21 days enough?

I doubt it. Unless we have tracked everyone infected and people they have come in contact with, it may not be enough. Why?

Let’s say I got infected the day before the lock down. For 15 days,without symptoms, I walked around, not a lot, just to get essentials. On day 15, I show symptoms. But the people I have infected may take 15 more days to show. That means, at least a month. And that, only if we strictly follow the rules. The more we break the lockdown rules, the more time it will take to contain the virus.

What can we do?

Stay at home.

Decrease your chances of getting infected. Your health is taken care of.

By not spreading the virus, you are saving the health of others around you.

And you are helping the healthcare system by not falling ill. The ones who had to go out, the ones who have fallen ill can access medical care because the system is not overwhelmed by huge numbers of ill people.

Stay home after the 21 days lock down.

21 days is not a magic number that will erase the virus off the planet. It is an effort to flatten the curve. Even after 21 days, if the virus is still in the country, then stay home. The ones who can work from home, can afford to stay home, should. If the food on your plate is not dependent on you going out, then stay home. So the ones who have to go out for their daily needs can do so while practicing social distancing easily. Let’s uncrowd.

I wish we could stay home till we knew no one in the world is sick or till an effective and inexpensive vaccine is available easily to everyone.

Continue the best practices.

If one has to be at work, switch off the air conditioning, open all windows, cover your nose, mouth and eyes all the time. Wash or sanitize your hands regularly, particularly before eating or drinking anything. I have found that covering my face completely helps me to stop touching my face. This infection can get to us only in certain ways and if we are careful, we can decrease the chances of getting it.

Remember the worst case scenario.

If this spreads, goes out of control, our hospitals will be over crowded, health care workers will be overwhelmed, medical supplies will run out, and care will be denied to many. People who could have been saved will die because of this. We are a country with a lot of elders, people with pre-existing health conditions and many of them could die.

Donate.

Thousands of laborers from unorganized sectors are stuck in cities and are going hungry. Donate to feed them. Donate to help them. Use your skills and resources to collaborate, organize and mobilize resources to help them. Nine families or ninety people, do something. Their lives matter too.

Hybrid Black Grapes Thief

Along with my partner and child, I went fruit shopping the evening of Holi. We needed elakki and nendra banana fruits. We walked to a shop close by noticing another vegetable and fruit shops being closed and a bakery shut. Holi holiday, I thought.

The shop we wanted to buy from, was open. This shop has fruits at the outside and vegetables inside. I think it is a pattern, as I have seen other shops too have fruits at the entrance, almost on the outside and vegetables in. The billing counter separates the fruits and vegetables section and is in a corner. This is a relatively decent sized shop for a fruit and vegetable shop. There usually is one person looking after the shop and sometimes, on busy evenings, two attenders.

My partner was carrying our child while I choose the fruits and he went to pay the bill while I carried our child. I saw two boys, color all over them, fighting, pulling each other, trying to hit, being rough with each other; being pre-teen kids. I thought they might be from north India. The smaller boy looked at me as they came close to the vegetable shop. The shopkeeper was busy tending to his customers, shifting his gaze from the kids, to the shelves and to billing. His focus was on billing and delivering the right items to the right customers and he was not paying much attention to these boys.

The smaller boy came close to the shop, put his hand in the hybrid black grapes basket, took some grapes, put it in his mouth and took his hand back; throughout looking at the shopkeeper.

I was looking at the boy, and he knew I was looking as he looked right back, meeting my eyes. I was angry at what he did and it was visible on my face.

He took few moments and repeated his act. We looked at each other again. This time, he was more confident, almost as if asking, I dare you to tell the shop keeper. I did not. I was furious because I had thought me watching him steal would have made him self-conscious and that would be enough to stop him. But it was not and I could not digest my failure.
He looked at me as if to ask, do you think I care if you tell the shopkeeper. I wanted to tell the shopkeeper but I did not. I was afraid because I also saw aggression in him as if to say, see what I will do to you if you tell him. I was holding my child and I feared for our safety.

My partner had finished his business and we walked back home. I happily distracted myself with some other thoughts. My child engaged with me in some conversation and I was relieved to be away from the boy.

Next morning, again the three of us were out and I was reminded of this boy. Why was this boy taking grapes that he did not buy? Why didn’t he have enough pride to say what is not mine, is not mine, that his significance won’t depend on whether he ate those grapes or not, I thought.
He knew what he was doing was not right, otherwise, he would not have done it when the shop keeper was looking away.
Why does his family not buy grapes? We have had poverty eradication measures since independence, still, here is a boy, unable to afford the fancy grapes.
Why do we have such temptations, why are these fruits so expensive?

I thought about value systems, politics, education policies, societal conditions and everything else that is part of the big picture. To fix a problem such as this, the whole country has to be fixed, I thought.

My partner pointed out that even we take fruits that we don’t necessarily buy. But my defense was, we go there with an intention to buy and we buy something. And somehow, when we buy something, taking a sample of something else did not seem wrong.

That evening, while lying on the bed, I thought about the boy again and I wondered;

Why didn’t I think of buying him some grapes? Ask him whether he liked them, whether he was hungry and buy him grapes or anything else he wanted?
I could afford those grapes (even though I think they are expensive and a waste of money, instead, we should buy local ones). If I had offered him, would it have made a difference?

Beneath the layers of fear, judgment and pseudo social activism, do I have a heart that really cares? How much do I have to navigate within my mind to do something?
As it was all thinking and no action.

Sowmyashree Gonibeedu