11th April 2020 – 18th DAY OF COMPLETE LOCK-DOWN OF INDIA

29^th DAY OF MY SOCIAL ISOLATION

7997 POSITIVE, 249 DEAD (3.11%), 774 RECOVERED (9.68%)

I didn’t write yesterday because I was too occupied (and then eventually tired of) with reading. I spent about 8 hours binge-reading and therefore it was a near perfect day. Naturally, I’ve been reading about COVID, my recent obsession. I read some pretty fantastic stuff. Links to some curated articles are at the end of this post. Please do read to burst some myths and know some history. It’s damn interesting.

(Cool new term to know: ‘Crimson Contagion’ – It’s a 2019 simulation of US’s Dept. of Health & Human services that imagines a flu Pandemic starting in China & spreading around the world. The simulation predicted about 0.6 million people would die in US alone. )

Anyway for today, let me begin with acknowledging, that the covid situation is here to stay. Accept it or ignore it. Either ways it’s going to happen. The world neither has enough infrastructure nor medical staff to keep on fighting it without a proven medication or a vaccine.

The news of 91 new cases in South Korea all among the ‘recovered’ patients signals to a pandemic which is here to stay much much longer than we’d like. However it’s not something the world hadn’t predicted earlier.

The research groups, epidemiologists, virologists, doctors and medical experts have repeatedly warned of an imminent pandemic and the fact that we’re not equipped to deal with it. And one can sense the truth in it by acknowledging just one fact.

The 1918 Spanish Flu killed more people (50 Million – 100 Million estimated figures) than World War I. It was a world-wide pandemic that affected people of all age groups, race, and countries and yet, we haven’t studied about it in our history books.

(Read this for more details & facts: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200325-covid-19-the-history-of-pandemics)

We’ve been so confident of modern medicine that we’ve side stepped all potential risks in the pursuit of economic power and bio-nuclear-tech supremacy. Regardless of repeated warnings about the abuse and over-use of antibiotics, we continue to buy them without prescriptions, pop them without doctor’s advice and modulate the dosage as per our feelings. The fall-out of the same is antibiotic resistance and development of super bugs who will mutate to be resistant to any known antibiotic to humans. This could lead to even common and otherwise, insignificant infections becoming fatal.
‘Delhi Super Bug’ is our version of one such multi-drug resistant strain of bacteria. Thousands of people across the world are already dying of this resistance.

Basically, today it’s a virus. In 2021, it could be a bacteria. Who knows? Climate Change, emerging bio-technology that can be disastrous to humanity, nuclear wars, loss of bio-diversity are all causal agents of a potential catastrophe that could wipe out our generation for certain and potentially our species, as we know it today.

We could first begin with accepting a fact, that we’re facing a magnanimous problem which has absolutely no short term solutions. It’s only a long tedious process of locking down and letting go of capitalist ambitions that could buy us time to find vaccines and medicines. Until then, we’re to stay back in our homes, as isolated as we can be. The 'isolation solution' is a medieval one. It worked then and it’s the only thing we know, will work now.

Unfortunately our global assembly lines are not built to support such unforeseen lockdown situations. We’re bound to run out of basic raw material to build essentials. And food. And medicines. The economically weak strata of the society is already facing crazy summer heat. We too will, eventually. Perhaps, the PM can consider providing a base income to the unemployed and daily wage earners to support them in such times. (It’s been done across many countries: - US, Italy, Spain and even UAE has opened an option for Filipinos there to apply for crisis cash aid.)

I want to remind people, that these are the kind of emergencies, you saved up all your money for. So spend on keeping yourselves and others safe. And spend on helping anyone you can. Offsetting expenditure for anything that can put you at risk is damn stupid. And if you’re protecting yourself, please remember, you’re protecting about 3 more people. Which is the objective, this month, next month, this year.

Early warning is that the world isn’t going back to how we knew it, at least until the end of this year. So brace yourselves and prep up for it.

We can do so by keeping calm, cutting slack, displaying patience and letting go. Whether we live with our partners or families or flat mates or just by ourselves. We got to keep it steady and chill. That’s probably the best way of living this through.

There is no reason for this picture to be here. I clicked it two days back during the full moon night. I found it soothing so decided to put it up since the context is so stay cool & calm, just like the moon.

Before I conclude, special mention for a friend Kriti Rawal and her sister, Shruti Rawal. Shruti’s EWOKE studio is trying to make hemp masks (hemp is better than cotton as it is naturally resistant to bacteria, can be re-used, is ecofriendly and pretty sturdy) given the situation. They are located in Hyderabad and have been struggling to find the raw materials to give this initiative a go. (https://instagram.com/ewoke.studio/ )

They've made a batch and distributed it to the police personnel working hard to ensure we all remain safe! See pics below:- 

If anyone knows elastic, fabric suppliers who are still holding some stocks, please do get in touch. Also, thumbs up for these guys who’re actually trying to do something useful. Proud of you both.

Until tomorrow, much love.

PS: Celebrities who live in the same house and still do excessive PDA on Instagram are really annoying. Please stop being so silly.

Also today’s recommended reading list:-

1.       Covid-19: The history of pandemics

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200325-covid-19-the-history-of-pandemics

2.       Why catastrophes can change the course of humanity

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190408-how-catastrophes-can-change-the-path-of-humanity

3.       Blaming China for coronavirus isn’t just dangerous. It missed the point

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/10/blaming-china-coronavirus-pandemic-capitalist-globalisation-scapegoat