SUKUMARAN C.V.
The other day when I called my friend who is a gram panchayat secretary, he told me that he has been a Covid-19 'patient' and the panchayat office where he works has temporarily been closed.
Generally, I have a feeling that the manner in which the virus is being handled in India, especially in my home state Kerala, is terribly problematic. But till I called my friend, I have had no idea that it is traumatic too. As the president of the panchayat, where my friend works as secretary, tested positive for nCoV, all the employees were home quarantined and my friend tested negative in the Rapid Antigen Test (RAT). But the doctor asked him to have RT-PCRT (Realtime Polymerase Chain Reaction Test) and in which he tested positive. He was taken away from home in an ambulance. His wife, son and daughter, who is a Class VIII student, were put under home quarantine. Notices informing the people that the home is of a Covid-19 patient and the family members are under quarantine/observation were pasted in front of their home. Five days later his wife and children were taken in an ambulance for testing. The daughter who never before has gone anywhere without her dad has been in trauma ever since he was taken away and she fell unconscious when she was taken to the ambulance. Nobody tested positive, but everybody was traumatised and the girl was terribly.
My friend spent ten days in a CFLTC (Covid First Line Treatment Centre) and on the tenth day tested negative in RAT and reached home. He was not a 'patient' even when he tested positive and the 'treatment' is, being asked to swallow multivitamin tablets once in a day. He could simply have done it sitting in his home too. And it must have spared both him and his family from the unnecessary mental trauma they have been forced to suffer. Most of the Covid-19 patients are like my friend who is as healthy as a nut both before and after being tested positive. And the greatest irony is that my friend, who first tested negative in the RAT, was forced to have RT-PCRT and was taken to the CFLTC. And he was released when proved Covid-free through RAT! Then why was he who tested negative in an antigen test forced to be a Covid-19 patient only to be proved negative by another antigen test? Many such questions remain unanswered in the 'fight' against the virus. The end result was the irreparabe trauma the people like my friend and their family members like the teenaged girl have to go through. This is the general picture statewide.
The total collection of viruses in and on the human body is called human virome. It is said that 'the human virome is a part of our bodies and will not always cause harm. Many viruses are present in the human body all the time. Viruses infect all plant forms; therefore the bacterial, plant and animal cells and material in our gut also carry viruses.'
The effect of the novel coronavirus in India cannot be called a lethal one. The first positive case in the country was reported in January 31 and so far the death toll is only 50000. We should bear in mind the fact that the population of the country is 130 crore. The virus needed exactly half an year to cause the death of around 50000 people out of this 130 crore. And of these 50000, many have already been suffering from other serious ailments. That means the virus has failed to have its killing spree in India as it has succeeded to have in Europe, the U.S. and Brazil. Hence, the fear-psychosis created in the name of the virus is quite an unwarranted one.
In India, it is not the virus that terrifies the people, but the method of the governments that handle the virus, I presume. If a hardly 15 year old girl falls unconscious due to the fear-psychosis created in the name of a virus in this age of freedom and democracy, it is bad; quite bad. The virus did no harm to her father or her; but the unscientific method of transforming a healthy person into a patient and transporting him to 'treatment centres' where there is no treatment except making such 'patients' virtual prisoners, really traumatises both the 'patients' and their family members.
It is high time we treated the novel coronavirus as an ordinary virus, one of the many viruses that exist in and around human body; instead of being terrified by its presence and terrify the people in the name of its presence.
