Who Would have thought?
31st December,2019
11:55 pm
Calendar read 31st of December while the watch devoured 11:55pm. The entire planet was just 5 minutes away from welcoming another Decade which made almost 7.5 billion humans on this planet jubilant. Entire planet counted minutes to welcome the new year with the Times Square glowing like a Diamond of various shades, the Sydney Harbour Bridge full with fireworks which created flames like cloud nebula with its colours, the Las Vegas filled with humans like a road filled with leaves during the season of benevolence: the spring. Tokyo, set up as colourfully as a rainbow. There were new hopes, new excitement and new preparations for the new year and hence, new decade but who would have thought what was going to happen next?
During all these commemorations and feeling of ecstasy, there was an untoward particle which was obscured as well as inconspicuous and was leisurely making a place for itself in the human world. Weeks passed, the celebrations slowed, new year’s pacts broke already, people began to go back to their daily routine and then, one day, unheard, never seen virus was detected in Wuhan, China. It was not a computer virus, but an original human virus. The world didn’t grasp its effect as who would have thought how it would change the history? It wasn’t long enough when medics started to understand its potentiality until the virus dismantled everything that came in between, and then, out of nowhere, the human race saw something menacing. Initially, China and even WHO thought that the virus was just because of some wet market in Wuhan, and only the people who have been there were affected but later, the true picture came out and it was revealed that the virus was highly contagious and had human to human transmission but then, who would have thought at which magnitude it would transmit? China, unable to contain the spread announced complete lockdown in Hubei Province with Wuhan, the capital city of Hubei, the epicentre of the virus on 23rd January. And hence, the virus came to be known to the world as Novel Coronavirus. Entire planet kept an eye on China regarding the coronavirus thinking the virus won’t spread to their country as it did in China as who would have thought how much contagious it was. There were videos doing rounds on the internet, about how miserable the lives of people of Wuhan was during that point of time. International and national media showed how hospitals were overwhelmed and how patients died even before receiving treatment in hospitals. There were rounds of rumours on the internet, that maybe lakhs of people have been infected and that the Government is hiding the true data regarding the infections and mortality. Even before there was any vaccine or a medicine for the virus, there were more discussions about how the virus originated and how it entered the human race. Some argued that the virus originated from Huanan sea food market from bats and others were of the opinion, that the virus originated from a Wuhan Lab. On 30th Jan, WHO declared world health emergency and on Mar 11th it declared the coronavirus a Pandemic.
Amongst all this, the virus slowly started spreading its base to South Korea and then to Europe who wasn’t ready to tackle the mighty novel coronavirus. It started from Italy and then to Spain, Germany, UK, France and most of the Europe. While, the condition somehow improved in China, it was the turn of Italy, to witness some agony. On papers and official data, Italy suffered much more than China did. Italy and Europe, the new epicentre of the outbreak, were unable to cope up with the Pandemic, and hence, saw 1000’s of their people dying everyday making them vulnerable and feeble. There was a situation, where army trucks were brought to carry the dead bodies of the deceased as there was a shortfall of ambulances. Even the cemeteries were overwhelmed and the dead bodies had to wait for days for the coffins to reach them. During this point of time, almost 3 billion people on the planet were under complete lockdown as almost every country on the planed was infected with coronavirus. Governments were helpless, scientist were clueless, medics were anxious and people traumatized as there was no proper analysis or data regarding the behaviour of new lethal coronavirus. The only choice, the Governments sough feasible was to lockdown the entire nation which was already the case in most of the countries. Who would have thought, this would happen?
Lockdown was something which was never heard of, and most people on this planet haven’t seen something so drastic ever in their lives. Entire world shut down, it seemed the planet was on a break, obviously not a vacation break as what was happening was infrequent, probably it won’t happen again in this generation.
Who would have thought that a place like Times Square, which was filled with noise and presence of so many lives would be as silent as a graveyard? Who would have thought that a “wonder of the world” the Colosseum, which had tourists all over it would be as empty as space? Who would have thought that a place like the Eiffel Tower, who was always filled with excitement of people, would be as dull as a ditch water? Who would have thought that the entire planet would be as scared as a mouse in a Snake’s Cage?
One would argue that these places obviously would have locked down because of huge public gatherings but did anyone expected an airplane banned to be in the air? Did anyone thought the public transport which was the heartbeat of various cities were banned to carry public? Did anyone thought the restaurants would be banned to serve food to the people? Did anyone expected movie halls which were meant to entertain people being banned from running a movie? Did anyone expected the schools and colleges meant to educate the youth be barred to allow students to enter the premises? Who would have thought that the divine Mecca would be closed for Muslims? Who would have thought there would be cancellation of Olympic Games? and at last, did anyone who believed in ‘right to freedom’ thought that people would be asked to remain shut in their homes and not come out? It seemed, that the movie ‘2012’ was actually playing in real life just with a different scenario. There was mayhem running all over the world with news channels having nothing but the news regarding the spreads and deaths, the internet continuously flooding with information regarding the novel coronavirus, the Governments releasing helpline numbers. Telephonic conversation between any two people being dominated by the topic of coronavirus. Wild animals were seen on the road more than any human could be and it seemed the humans were now caged in a zoo. All one could hear was about the lockdown and pray about flattening of the curve. There were predictions of when the virus would reach its peak etc. Its effect could have been felt by the fact that the people even scared to talk to other human and maintain a distance as ‘Social Distancing” becoming the new normal.
Gradually, after some countries witnessed their peak, started seeing decline in number of new infections and mortality rate and that was the omen, that these countries must start easing lockdowns. Restaurants began to open up, roads were once again witnessing human presence, public places were slowly opening up, public transport with less capacity started operating and somehow during all this, we realized that the human history has seen another division: pre-corona and post-corona times. Despite all this happening, scientist all over the world worked at never seen before rate to develop a vaccine which could possibly end the fight against this pernicious virus. For the first time, it seemed that the world has come together to fight a common enemy with the politicians, scientists, medics and police staff working together with a common aim to remove the existence of this foreign element from the human world. At this time, there are 5.5 million cases globally with death toll reaching around 3.5 lakhs but there is conclusion, that no matter how much technologically advanced we think we are; the truth is we are not ready to fight an unanticipated virus. AI might have taken over, smart phones may have become smarter, maybe we will be landing spacecrafts to many more planets but that advancements mean nothing if we are not able to contain a virus as human a life is way more precious than the development of science. There are predictions about the first, second and the third wave of the coronavirus as seen in previous major Pandemics but the lives saved and the damage control in this Pandemic is directly proportional to technological advancement of Science. Despite all the chaos, funk and agitation, the human species once again, proved that whatever the hardship be, the human will have always come out to be stronger because who would have thought anything of that sort would ever happen?
-KT
