Reflections of the COVID-19 Times

It has been a while since I made the last post here. Unfortunately the time I decided to come back here is a traumatic time for the whole world. We are all participating in a big fight against the corona virus. This post is my reflection on this fight since the last two months.

The beginning

In the last few weeks, I participated in two nationwide events as per the request of our honorable prime minister Narendra Modi. First one was by clapping for five minutes, standing at the balcony of my house, to honor our health care workers fighting the deadly COVID-19 and the second one by lighting a candle to symbolically chase away darkness looming over the country and the world. While I stood in my balcony along with my family during both events, I was overwhelmed with sadness and anxiety. I wished my participation along with my fellow countrymen was for some celebration of victory or some other happy occasion. But it was not. While I was still standing there in the comforts of my balcony, I remembered for a moment, thousands of my fellow countrymen who are not fortunate enough to stand comfortably and participate in those nation-wide events. I also got reminded of the fact that, though human race can boast of sending remote controlled vehicles to the edge of our solar system, scale new heights in every aspects of our life though scientific discoveries, perform miracles through artificial intelligence, a small microorganism, an unseen enemy, could bring humans to their knees, make powerful nations scream and shiver and make the whole world run for life. I have realized and accepted the fact that I am now living in unprecedented times with unheard incidents happening. Life would be different after we get over this crisis for sure.

I was in the Hyatt Regency hotel in Trinidad in the month of January 2020 when I first heard about the corona outbreak in the city of Wuhan in China. At that time, I too had developed severe cough due to my hectic travel schedules. The Physician whom I met there, prescribed medicines and comforted me that what I have is a normal sore throat. Just to be safe, I wanted to get some face masks during my return to India. A colleague took me to almost all medical shops in Trinidad to look for face masks. At that time, COVID-19 has not spread to the whole world. Perhaps due to that reason I didn’t get any mask in Trinidad. Fortunately, another colleague who had a stock of face masks provided me a pack of them. While I traveled through the airports wearing the mask, I could see some people staring at me as I was one of the very few people wearing it at that time. When I reached Gatwick airport on my transit, I saw security personal loudly conveying to their colleagues standing far away, pointing to me that “he is coming from Trinidad. Its OK”. They were confirming that I am not coming from any COVID-19 affected regions.

The spread

Over the next two weeks, the world was already on its way to change to the current condition we see all around. Fear and anxiety were growing slowly. Some countries started taking things seriously while for others it was still a trivial issue like a seasonal flu. I had another business travel coming up in the Netherlands. My family was very much afraid of letting me go. I was in a dilemma too. Should I surrender to the fear or should I perform my duty? The day I was supposed to travel, the first COVID-19 case was reported in the Netherlands. That triggered my decision to cancel my trip which was supported by my manager as well as senior colleagues, which now I consider as a good decision I took. Since then, COVID-19 cases and mortalities in the Netherlands have reached very high, which is alarming especially for a small country like it.

At the time of writing this note, in April, the world is completely in a different situation. One after another the nations are fighting this unseen enemy. Death toll in every country is going northwards. Heart melting stories are heard from every corner of the world. The initial days I was inundated with this type of scary news from all around.  World Health Organization correctly coined this overdose of information as “Infodemic” which definitely had an impact on the mental health for me and people around me. It was depressing to hear all negative news throughout. It was acting as a catalyst to accelerate the rise in anxiety levels in me.

 Every time I read or watch news on COVID-19 related causalities, see the suffering of fellow human beings around the globe, hear the plight of daily laborers whose only route for getting their income is stopped by the country wide lock down in India, I thank the superpower whom people identify with various names – the almighty, for

• My family and I are healthy and safe from any deadly infections.
• My friends and colleagues whom I know are healthy.
• I can work from the comfort of my home and to do that, I have a job and I have a shelter- a home.
• Even with the limited supply of groceries and essentials, my family and I are not starving for food.
• My family and I have meals three-time a day and sound sleep.
• Till today I didn’t have to worry about my salary as I get it regularly even at this troubled time.
• I am in my own country where the government is putting up the best efforts to fight this deadly disease.

My reflections

Nowadays the media is flooded with facts, figures, charts and analysis of COVID-19 situations around the world. I am familiar with the bar charts, histograms, cumulative distribution charts and trend analysis of oil and gas related subsurface data as part of my job. Now I am looking at similar visuals on data related to COVID-19 infection around the globe, which constantly puts the question to my mind – when will this be over?

When I look at those charts and figures, I try not to see them just as statistical data, but as reflections of the plight of my fellow human beings everywhere around me.

• Someone dying in the hospital beds and getting cremated without even getting last rites.
• Someone going to the hospital, leaving the family of dear and near, not knowing whether he or she will be able to come back to them.
• All those health care workers risking their own life and the life of their family and come forward everyday to take care of the COVID-19 patients in hospitals.
• People getting ostracized by their fellow human beings due to social stigma and fear associated with COVID-19.
• Daily laborers who have no means to make both ends meet and feed self and the people dependent on them.
• People who made plans for future, had dreams of a bright tomorrow, but within few days those plans gone haywire and dreams snatched away from them.

While I stand by the decisions taken by our honorable prime minster to lock down the country, the collateral damages it has already brought to the country and country men are perhaps beyond what my small brain can imagine. All I can hope is that the best brains in my country and elsewhere are already into action to limit these collateral damages and look for a way forward.

What it taught me

Though it is all negativity around, the current situation has taught me few things.

Resource utilization: As part of my job I analyze the utilization of human resources. But at home, I have not been critically looking into the optimum utilization of resources, be it food items, groceries, vegetables, snacks and even cloths. Everything was available in plenty and thankfully all my needs were within my buying capacity. Now the situation is different. Though my buying capacity has not changed, what is available to me is limited. Food items and daily essentials needed are rationed. Going out to buy grocery is to be considered only if it is essential. Weekend shopping used to be a family outing till few weeks back. Now I have adapted to the changed situation. As a hardcore non-vegetarian, I used to eat a lot of chicken and used to dine out frequently. But I have successfully transformed to a full vegetarian for about five weeks, though it was forced upon me. Food items which I used to avoid, as I never had taste for it, I eat them now without complaints. I have survived so far without any of those food items I am crazy about. I see value in everything I disliked. For me what is important is to sail through the lock down period (may be beyond) with what I have. I want to minimize the exposure my family and I can have by going out unnecessarily to buy things.

Realizing the value of every small item: Everyday when the delivery boys bring the stuff I have ordered online, I go towards the front door of my house with lot of anxiety and nervousness. Did they deliver the stuff I needed? or they cancelled it due to lack of stock? Once I see the ordered stuff in front of my door, I grab them with the same enthusiasm a treasure hunter might have when discovering a hidden treasure, he was dying to discover. I had this feeling when one crate of eggs was delivered to my home two weeks back. The last stock of eggs was utilized to make homemade cake for my daughter’s birthday which we celebrated with everything made at home.

Realizing the fear factor around: Paranoia and stigma have no relation to education or social status. People get paranoid easily. They don’t hesitate to stigmatize fellow humans. Surprisingly even the educated people do that. In the initial days of this pandemic itself when my daughter and wife were going down in the lift and when my daughter sneezed, an elderly person in the lift asked seriously “where is your mask?”. At that time people have not started wearing masks as a habit. Viral infection has not even crossed double digits in India by then. But still the fear factor was slowly creeping into people’s mind. Now all are afraid of touching newspaper, doorknobs, lift buttons, vegetables, grocery items and anything that comes from external hands. My everyday morning ritual is to wash the milk packets in soap water to disinfect them. Same rituals I apply for vegetables and grocery packets. I start to wonder; how fearful we all are about the little unseen enemy- a virus. Two weeks ago, rumor mills were constantly working to spread the fear by mentioning which flat or house in the apartment complex has COVID-19 patients. I feared that soon people might start labeling others with a strange and hostile mindset. Thankfully we didn’t reach that stage and people started behaving in a more civilized manner.

Lies, Hoaxes, and min-information: Social media has been at its best with people educating friends, colleagues and relatives about COVID-19, methods to cure and prevent the disease and even finding humor at this time of crisis. Initially I also used to enjoy those humors, trolls and memes. At times I used to forward them to people in my contact list as well. Then one day I received a thought-provoking message from someone. It said, “you will find the humor in these COVID-19 jokes until either you or someone you love is affected by COVID-19”. It was really a disturbing but eye-opening message. Since then I stopped forwarding such COVID-19 jokes to anyone. I also started to disregard any forwarded messages from unreliable or unauthentic sources which might be hoaxes and could be instrumental is instigating communal disharmony and fear. Some people forward messages with good intent but not realizing that it is a hoax message or fake news. Now I think thrice before pushing the forward button on any such messages I receive. I also try to do a fact check through some reliable internet resources before I believe such news.

Do it yourself: In a typical Indian household, if one day the maid servant does not come, hell may break out. People are dependent on the house maids to do many chores at home like mopping and cleaning of the room, washing the utensils, dusting the windows and even cooking. I too have a maid. Managing one or two days of her absence was not a difficult thing. But is it manageable for a prolonged period? It was beyond the imagination for my wife and me. But this little virus taught us the fact that managing our own house by distributing the household chores between me and my wife is not an impossible task. I could happily experiment by taking up the role of the maid servant to wash the utensils, cleaning the house with vacuum cleaner, even enjoy cooking some delicious food items as a cook. It reminded me of my days as a bachelor, when I used to do everything in my house all by myself.

Last thoughts

May be the best positive side of all these developments under the lock-down period, is the good amount of time I am able to spend with my wife and my daughter. Again when I say this, I should thankfully remember the millions of health care workers who are at the front line of the battle and the enforcement agency people who are fighting hard to implement measures to curb the spread of the virus, as they are not having the luxury of working from home and the good amount of personal time with family, like I have.

The grossly underestimated little virus has spread its grip all over the world. It didn’t spare anyone by looking into race, caste, religion, gender, financial status, social status, or geographical boundaries. When the world is going through the lock down and quarantine, it is proving that the greatest threat to our environment is the human beings only. The way we utilize the nature’s resources, and the way we pollute and strain our environment are causing irreparable damages. Nature has proven again that to bring the human beings with “I know everything” attitude or “nothing can beat me “attitude, to their knees, all it needs is just a microorganism which can’t be even seen.

Again, I wonder. When this struggle will be over. In the deep corners of my mind, the pessimist is getting worried and shoot up lot of questions continuously.

• Are the precautions I take good enough to protect me and my family from COVID-19?
• How is this going to impact my ability to travel and meet my dear and near ones who are far away from me?
• How am I going to respond to any family emergency that can come up?
• As the whole world is facing a turmoil, how this will impact my job, my career, the quality of life for me and my wife in the future, quality of life I dream for my daughter?
• Will there be job cuts or pay cuts?
• What will happen to my hard-earned money?
• How different the post COVID-19 world would be from the pre COVID-19 world?

I know that no one will be able to help me with answers to these questions. These things are beyond anyone’s expertise. I will take the predictions made by the pundits and statistical experts on how things will turn out, with a pinch of salt only. I will have to wait patiently and perhaps painfully for the time to tell me the answers.

But the optimist in me push me to look at the things in a different way. This pandemic has brought some behavioral changes in people worldwide. Though the effect may be temporary, it is heartening to see the reduction in air, water and noise pollution levels. I read reports about wild animals roaming freely on country roads as they try to reclaim their lost habitat. Air quality in many cities have improved considerably. I do not know how long this can be sustained. Time will only tell that.  Just like many other pandemics humans had won over, we will win against corona virus as well. Scientists and researchers across the globe are marching ahead on their mission to defeat the virus. I hope there will be a vaccine soon. Later generations in their textbooks will read about the heroic fight put up by our generation with COVID-19. Though I am not at the battle front, I too am participating in the fight by not venturing out, following the instructions given by the government and health care agencies on social distancing, to arrest the spreading of the disease. I am sure there will be light at the end of the tunnel.

I sincerely hope the human beings will understand the futility of fighting over geographical boundaries, religion, money and everything that is responsible for the calamities in this world. A big tragedy of this magnitude is happening perhaps to make us realize that none of these can help us when our health is affected severely. What is needed is love for each other, mindset to look after each other, irrespective of color, gender, religion, cast, and judicious utilization of nature’s precious resources.

Like John Lennon sang about a beautiful world in his iconic song “Imagine”, I wish the Post COVID-19 world is a better place to live than what we have now.

Signing off with everlasting optimism

Jose Varghese

13^th April 2020