Corona has put the brakes on the pace of life. The future is uncertain. People are facing the challenge to bring the life back on track and governments are confronting the challenges of managing the declining economy. During the last few months the pattern of life has changed completely. The job of millions has been taken away or their jobs are put on hold. For those who are free from the worries of livelihood, the worry of remaining safe dominates over everything else. Masks and sanitizers have become inadequate in preventing fear of Corona. After all, how can we ignore the fact that Europe and America, who take great care of hygiene, have already become the biggest victims of Corona.
There is dilemma about everything. Will the Corona vaccine be discovered or not? What will happen to the job? Will there be examinations or not? Will the lockdown happen again? And the biggest question is whether we and our loved ones will pass through this disaster safely? There is an ambiance of fear everywhere but this fear is ill-founded.
The major difficulty about the Coronavirus is that we know very little about it. Limited testing and the flawed method of data gathering have made more complicated this challenge. When we are properly aware of a problem, it is easy for us to adopt an attitude towards it, but this uncertainty increases our worries. The result is that even after adopting all the means, we don’t know how safe we are. Every wave of half-baked information pushes us from one side to another. The world is looking for hope and that hope is being sold in different forms, from sanitizer to news. Such predictions have also been made that the Corona will end 99% in India by 4th of June.
“This report says that 97% of Corona cases will end by 25th of May in India. By 4th of june this infection will end 99% and it will washed-up completely by august 1st.” In this difficult time, it’s not only hope is for sale, fear has become equally reliable merchandise. News of disasters by locust swarm, storm, earthquakes and meteorites are being presented in a way as if the end of the world has been confirmed.
But the Corona is completely different from the rest of the prophecies and news of the great disasters because it has a scientific basis, the strength of data and our everyday experience. And hence reliable sources of news are also presenting a scary picture.
By the time this report is prepared, the worldwide known number of Corona-infected cases has crossed 1 crore and the death toll has crossed five lakh, while the known number of infected people in India is 6 lakh and the death toll has crossed 17 thousand. The actual number of infected people is certainly higher. The health care system has collapsed and doctors themselves are increasingly becoming patients. In the list of most affected countries, India has progressed very rapidly to the fourth position. Old records are being broken every day, it seems that the most terrible havoc of the pandemic is yet to come. Whatever is happening in the media nowadays can be called the bombardment of figures. We are watching only figures every day and these figures can make us unable to think anything else. We accept defeat in front of these huge figures, without noticing that a half-truth is a whole lie and incomplete figures show you the half-truth only.
If we assume the onset of Corona infection from February 2020, then by June it has taken about 0.5 million lives in these five months. That is, every month there are 0.1 million deaths due to Coronavirus. This is the number that has been used to constantly intimidate to the people. Such confusion is beginning to occur as if people are dying of Corona only.
To properly understand the status of Corona, it is necessary to place it between the whole picture of life and death. Despite the increasing population during last 65 years, the number of deaths in the world has not changed much and during the last 30 years it has always been between five to six crores. In recent years almost every year 56 million people have died. That is, on an average, 4.7 million people die every month worldwide. Heart disease and cancer are the most deadly diseases causing almost half of deaths and every fifth death is due to infectious diseases.
If the Coronavirus has killed 0.1 million every month, then this count is much smaller than other deadly diseases.
This number appears dwarf ahead of the total deaths in the world. In such a situation, the question arises as to why and how this fear is being spread? From the media to the governments why are they so serious about it? If you look at the statistics of deaths worldwide every year, some surprising truths are revealed. Death also makes a big difference between rich and poor. In poor countries, more than half of deaths are due to infectious diseases, childbirth problems and malnutrition, whereas in affluent countries, only 7% of these deaths occur. This can be understood better by referring to India. For example, in 2017, diarrhea and TB in India led to 719 thousand and 449 thousand deaths respectively, which was 12% of total deaths in India.
On the other hand, 9506 and 939 deaths from these diseases occurred in the United States respectively, which was nearly 0.37 percent of the total 2.8 million deaths there. In such a situation, diseases like diarrhea and TB would not be a concern of America or other affluent countries at all. This is the secret that has created a ruckus in the affluent countries about Corona.
These affluent countries, which are free from the worry of infectious diseases to a great extent, are now facing such a contagious disease which they do not have treatment. But India and other poor countries which are home to other deadly infectious diseases are actually bearing the burden of worries of these affluent countries. Gradually, it has also started to appear that in India itself, there is a difference in the concerns of the rich and poor about the Corona. To the poor, the loss of their livelihood has not been less fatal than Corona.
Attention to TB is particularly useful for us to understand the fear of Corona. It is also an infectious disease and its infection is faster than Corona. The World Health Organization website states that “TB is spread from person to person through the air. When people with lung TB cough, sneeze or spit, they propel the TB germs into the air. A person needs to inhale only a few of these germs to become infected.” The website also informs that about a quarter of the world’s population, nearly two billion people, are victims of latent TB and can fall ill at any time. Every year 10 million people worldwide get infected with TB and 1.5 million people die from TB. India continues to top in the list of countries affected by TB.
According to the World Health Organization, a TB patient can infect 5 to 15 people every year, while a patient with Corona can infect an average of 2.5 people between two and three weeks of the disease. The death rate from Corona infection remains the subject of much controversy. If some countries have been accused of hiding the death figures, then the Health Organization itself has been facing serious allegations of exaggerating the danger.
In early March, the World Health Organization estimated a 3.4% mortality rate from Corona infection, while in April, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention recalculated it with more data, reporting a mortality rate of 0.26%. The thing to keep in mind is that the higher the number of tests, the more infected can be detected and in return the death rate will decrease further. From the CDC’s data to the unprocessed data that is being served to the public, none of them is around TB’s 15% mortality rate. That means the chances of dying from TB are much higher than that of Corona.
If we estimate further on the basis of these figures, during the last 5 months, while about 17 thousand people have died due to Corona in India, 180 thousand people will have died from TB and 300 thousand from diarrhea related diseases. It is a sad truth that TB and diarrhea itself are mainly diseases of the poor in our country. Despite being so deadly, any such fear or any special precaution is completely absent in India.
There can be only two reasons for this. Either people are unaware of the danger of TB or they are shown to be exaggerating the risk of Corona. Or if both these things are true, then it is nothing but a conspiracy to scare people by keeping them in the dark. It is a matter of thinking that who could be benefitted from this conspiracy.
Leave the TB, for people it is unthinkable how deadly the common seasonal flu is. Since it is not considered as a serious problem, most of its cases is not been reported. According to an estimate by the World Health Organization, about one billion people are infected with flu every year, with 3 to 5 million people falling seriously ill and causing deaths from 290 thousand to 650 thousand. If night and day you would be told only about deaths due to flu, then the figure of 3 to 6 lakhs will not cause less panic.
The comparison of a flu to Corona seems strange, but surprisingly, the two have so many similarities that many people consider Corona to be a form of flu. Both have the same infection through droplets. Fever, cough, body ache and runny nose are the basic symptoms of both. Both have same preventive measures and risk from both diseases are almost similar. The difference between the two is technical. While many types of viruses are responsible for the flu and according to the dominant seasonal virus, it has to be vaccinated every year.
On the other hand only one virus is responsible for the Corona and its vaccine has not yet been discovered. The difference in incubation period of both diseases also has been observed. Patients who are already suffering from a serious disease, pregnant women and the elderly are at greater risk of both diseases. Corona or flu and many similar diseases are not in themselves the cause of death, but it proves to be the last decisive push for humans already on the verge of death. It is common belief among doctors and scientists that the Corona is more dangerous than most varieties of flu, but it is worth noting that influenza was much more deadly in its early stages. A category of influenza, H1N1 or ‘Spanish flu’ killed 50 million people during 1918-19, another virus of the same category emerged in recent times as Swine flu.
According to the news published in an English daily, the death rate from Corona in India is just slightly higher than the flu. If the immune system is fine, then both are diseases that can be cured on their own. According to the World Health Organization itself, 80% of people infected with Corona do not need any hospital treatment, only 5% of cases fall in the category of critical. As the amount of testing increases, more and more asymptomatic patients are appearing in which there are no signs of the disease – such patients are also not at risk.
The carelessness about TB and Diarrhea which are many times fatal and widespread than Corona, and fear from a disease similar to flu indicates about many serious issues. It tells how careless people are about their own precious life. It also tells about the strength of the media and its role.
Fear can make a person sick and even kill, but apart from this, fear makes human beings to do many things. Examples like panic shopping suggest that a scared person can be a good buyer. He can buy excess goods at expensive prices. Fear makes humans selfish and asocial and fear can also become an easy excuse to snatch away their freedom.
Corona has not scared people by itself. This fear has been filled in people’s minds through all the announcements and figures. The fear of Corona is a man-made tragedy. It is one of the biggest crimes committed against humanity. But the taboo of Corona cannot be dragged too long. At present, when the government has started worrying about the economy rather than life, you could soon be informed that the Corona is no longer dangerous. The Corona may not be very dangerous but it is a danger bell. This has exposed our health care system. The health sector has been continuously neglected since independence. Its share in GDP and budget being lower than many poor countries like Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. There is a shortage of hospitals and doctors even for critical patients in India and the country is not ready to face any future infectious disaster. Caution and fear are two completely different things. Scared person is more likely to make mistakes. It is important to take precaution against all infectious diseases, not just Corona. It is important that you be alert in time and alert others as well. If you take precautions and remain unafraid, then your chances of survival are very high.