FEAR, AND NOT THE VIRUS, IS THE ENEMY TODAY

There are nearly 3 million confirmed cases of Coronavirus worldwide. There have been just under 206,000 deaths and more than 861,000 people have recovered, according to Johns Hopkins University website. Scanning the headlines each morning, there are specters of danger on every page. Every television channel is showing these horrific graphics and regurgitating newer horror stories of disease and devastation. The news anchors gave gone epileptic with horror charts and projection of doom has become their favourite pastime. Media today is a merchant of fear.

So why is there this atmosphere of fear almost akin to one in a war zone? Today we are afraid because we are confronting an unknown enemy. We have seen it ruthlessly ravaging countries after countries, those which were far more economically resourceful and strategically developed than we are. So naturally we are anxious. We are afraid of what the future holds for us. We are afraid of poverty, of unemployment, of dishonor, of disgrace, of disease and even of death. Fear psychosis and paranoia have hijacked our society's most vulnerable section as both life and livelihood seem to be threatened.  

Fear is a product of, and sometimes a cause of, vulnerability. And inequality, in all its forms, makes us feel ever more vulnerable. On an individual level, there’s fear about not being able to pay the bills or put food on the table for the family. Every day, people fear how they will be treated based on their vulnerabilities. There’s fear that they will be denied the right to determine their own future, to rise as high as their talent permits and work as hard as only they can. The lockdown has locked their talents and left them penniless and vulnerable.

The virus unfortunately has come with a stigma and both the patients as well as the health workers have been on the receiving end of this stigma. Doctors have been forced to leave their rented accommodation and patients are mortally scared of not being accepted back in society once they test positive and so they are hiding away from the reach of health officials and spreading the disease. Fear of quarantine away from their family and imprisonment of the family if they are caught hiding them is preventing them from speaking out, from being themselves, from doing what is right for them, their family and the society. And these threats continue to mount.

Certain actions—such as the increase of government surveillance, and timely cordoning off of the hot spots are vital to contain the disease but are causing fear in the minds of certain communities. Meanwhile, the underlying causes of that fear - the effective use of propaganda, or a persistent cultural narrative, go without being examined, let alone addressed. Stern action against such propaganda in the social media is mandatory to nip the effort of giving a communal colour to this distress in the bud. This is because fear seizes upon our differences and exaggerates them, and almost always compels society to divide along lines of “us” versus “them.” It entices the desperate or the frustrated or the furious. It empowers demagogues and strongmen who exploit the very real anxieties of ordinary people while amassing power for themselves and their cronies. It drives governments, even elected ones, to make decisions that seek to preserve “law and order” at the expense of freedom and dignity. The government has assumed some extra powers to tide over this crisis but should be ready to shed these powers once the crisis is over so that people can regain control of their lives and assert their freedom and the government once again becomes a symbol of national aspiration and well-being and not remain a jail warden overlooking a pan India prison. 

In other words, fear is toxic to our society because it discourages people from taking the actions that might help us feel safer, or make us freer, or allow us to heal and instead it drives us apart. If one of the intended effects of fear is that it stifles action, then to oppose fear, we must be willing to act. This is particularly true when the action required is inconvenient or uncomfortable or risky, when taking action might be considered hazardous for our reputations or even dangerous for our careers. More than just acting for ourselves, we must be willing to act on behalf of others—especially those who live in fear. Our actions can bolster those who might otherwise be vulnerable, and can provide cover to those often targeted because of their identity or affiliation or simply poverty.

If we have understood the problem of the pandemic and if we see what efforts are being made worldwide to counter it then we have two choices - either we can pull up our socks and help or we can act as victims and fear. We can submit to fear and allow ourselves to be overwhelmed by it and make our life miserable or we can overcome the fear, consider it as a challenge and an opportunity and be our creative best. The choice is completely ours.

Of course, this responsibility to act does not require that we act irresponsibly. Our safety and self-care remain paramount, especially in these dangerous times. Masking up, maintaining social distancing and washing hands with soap and water repeatedly should not be forgotten. But if we have the privilege to act, or if our privilege grants us some respite from fear, we must do what we can to create for others those feelings of safety and of being seen. Throughout history, there has been no better guardian of the freedom from fear, no better defender of the vulnerable than Gandhi ji, Nelson Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyi and Martin Luther King jr. Franklin Roosevelt once said “let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is...fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.” The challenges faced by these great people were different but their common enemy was fear!

Fear is the root of all our problems. It does nothing constructive but saps all our vital energies leaving us too drained and sapped out to savour the pleasures of life. Fear paralyses the mind and brings in negativity and misfortune. It causes anxiety, stress and tension and undermines our wellbeing. Worst of all it robs us of happiness and destroys our peace of mind. No wonder Milton wrote "The mind is its own place and in itself can create a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven."

Happiness is a gift from God to people who have a habit of thinking positively in all situations. Sunshine in the mind can make flowers bloom in barren deserts. Life demands us to be courageous to fight against negativity and gloom. Be free from fear. Be fearless and have faith in the divine is what the Bhagwat Gita tells us.

MIGRANT WORKERS - THE UNSUNG ARCHITECTS OF OUR PROSPERITY

Migration takes place because of two basic stimuli - prosperity and distress. Children of middle class families of U.P, Bihar, Jharkhand, Rajasthan and West Bengal usually migrate to states like Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamilnadu and Delhi and even overseas for better job prospects, this is migration for prosperity and it is good for both places of origin and destination as well as for the migrant. Kerala is the state which has benefited maximally from this model of migration and approximately Rs. 200 crores are remitted every day to the state's economy by 10% of its population which works as migrant workers in gulf countries. 

Migration is a must for growth and development of any nation. Countries that have encouraged migration like the U.S have reaped the benefits of their talent and skills and have become leading economies of the world. In India too states like Maharashtra Gujarat, Karnataka and Delhi outshine others because of the contribution of their migrants. 

The distress based migration however is a different story all together. Draught prone regions of our country are the usual source of these migrants. Around 150 districts of India fall in this unfortunate category from where maximum out-migrations occur. National Census tells us that about 92 lake people migrated from U.P in 2001 and this figure went up to 1.23 crore in 2011 and going by the same trend will reach 1.63 crore by 2021. A 3.3% growth in the state suggests that socioeconomic upliftment of the poor is not taking place at a fast pace and migration from villages of U.P to greener pastures continue. They are forced to move out because of distress and their migration helps them neither in the source nor the destination of their migration as in both places these people remain poor and vulnerable for a very long time.

Migration has become essential for people from regions that face frequent shortages of rainfall or suffer floods, or where population densities are high in relation to land. Areas facing unresolved social or political conflicts also become prone to high out migration. Poverty, lack of local options and the availability of work elsewhere become the trigger and the pull for rural migration respectively.

After the iconic liberalisation of the Indian economy in 1991 waves of transformation swept through our finance and trade but hardly any reform happened in one sector that was crying out for reforms - agriculture. So whereas on one hand 271 million people were lifted out of poverty and a 'new middle class' was created in urban India, almost 276 million, mostly in the villages, were left poor and deprived. Food prices did not rise proportionately as that would be politically inconvenient and land per capita kept on shrinking as generations rolled bye. Millions of rural migrants were forced to move to the cities in search of livelihood. In the cities though they get employment but do so mostly in the un-organized sector like road and building construction, security agencies, food vending and delivery. Migrants form the largest part of India's vast unorganized work sector. Their entry into the labour markets is marked with several endemic disadvantages. Devoid of critical skills, information and bargaining power, migrant workers often get caught in exploitative labour arrangements that forces them to work in low-end, low-value, hazardous work. Lack of identity and legal protection accentuates this problem. The hardships of migrant workers are especially magnified when state boundaries are crossed and the distance between the "source" and "destination" increases. Migrants can also become easy victims of identity politics and parochialism.

The most unfortunate are the 100 million 'circular migrants'. They are the male members of the migrant families who move to cities for a better living but do not earn enough to support a family in the city. So they end up sending remittances to their village homes so that their children can study and their families can just survive and they spend very little on themselves living in suboptimal conditions with barely two square meals a day. During the harvest season they go home only to return to their city slums to earn their livelihood all over again. These are the people - the watchman, the delivery boy, the construction worker, the driver who improve our quality of living in the cities and yet remain poor and faceless and virtually invisible throughout their life!

It has taken a pandemic to bring their plight back into the national spotlight. Every day we are seeing hundreds of them, some with their wife and children, walking back home, perhaps more than 500 Km away, on our parched national highways under the scorching summer sun. They are jobless, money-less, hungry, famished and exhausted and have somehow missed getting enrolled in the JAM trinity. The television anchors give them this fancy name of migrant workers but fail to realise that within them are our best masons, skilled artisans, plumbers, electricians, carpenters, tailors, drivers and cleaners. They make our cities liveable but unfortunately the cities could not do the same to their lives.

Migrant workers are not a faceless magma or a vote bank, they are our equal citizens; their concerns need to be understood and their problems need to be addressed. They have a right to their quota of rationed food and oil but it is available to them only in their domicile. Our welfare schemes should be portable so that these people, who need them most, are not deprived of their share. They should not remain invisible; they need to be seen and their voices need to be heard. If the government fails to reach out to even one, it is one too many.

Economic growth in India today hinges on mobility of labour. The contribution of migrant workers to national income is enormous but there is little done in return for their security and well-being. There is an imminent need for solutions to transform migration into a more dignified and rewarding opportunity. Without this, making growth inclusive or the very least, sustainable, will remain a very distant dream.

REVIVAL OF INDIAN TRADITIONS IN POST LOCKDOWN PERIOD

The traditional Indian household is a living embodiment of our culture and our ancient civilisation. With generations rolling bye we may have left behind a few traditions here and there but it is not at all difficult for us to recollect and re-embrace them.

I remember when we were children we were not allowed to come in with our shoes on. Footwear were to be left outside the front door and we would be directed to the tap or the well to wash our feet before entering our or anybody else's home. The greeting was either a Namaskar or a Pranam by touching the feet of the elderly and their feet were invariably spotless clean. Guests were always advised first to wash up and fresh towel / angocha and dhoti was offered to then to change from the soiled street clothes. 

As a child I was asked to go for a haircut just before it was time to shower or take a bucket and tumbler bath and as soon as I was home I was rushed into the bathroom. Similarly a visit to a fish market or a butcher's shop was also followed by a soapy bath or shower. Same was the ritual after returning from a cremation or a burial. In the evening after returning from the playground we were instructed to wash our hands, feet and face before settling down for studies. Toilet paper was unheard of and early in life we were taught the value of a very high standard of personal hygiene. A food item was to be touched only by the right hand and a glass of water by the left. 

The day I had my upanayan, the sacred thread ceremony, I was introduced to a whole new world. I had to meditate for a brief time twice a day. I could not touch the glass or bottle of water with my lips but had to hold it an inch above my open mouth and learn the speed of tilting it so that I do not choke. I was taught to offer food to God first before starting to eat and now that it was a prasad, I had to eat every morsel of it whether I liked it or not, and that too without complaining. 

There were a few aberrations too which seemed unfair like we were not allowed to touch Madho Kaka who came to sweep our garden and clean our bathroom and toilets. His tumbler in which tea was served every day was cleaned and kept in a corner by him only. The explanation offered was he works in a polluted environment and so we can get infected by diseases he might be carrying unknowingly. Looking back, even if the idea made sense, it surely was untouchability in an ugly form. We respected the man, he was a member of our extended family present with us on all auspicious and inauspicious family occasions but his blessing were always from a distance. 

Today when we are locked down in our homes and are hoping that this curse will end sooner than later, I think the post lockdown days will once again be very much like my childhood days. The hugs and hand shakes will be replaced by Namaskar, those who walk into their homes and their kitchen with their footwear on will learn to leave them at the entrance, every visitor will be asked to wash hands, feet and face and distance will be maintained with the unknown. Cleanliness  and personal hygiene will regain its importance and food will hopefully not be fussed upon and wasted.

I also expect science to do it's part too and voice activated lifts and automatically opening doors will prevent us from touching door knobs and lift buttons. Needless to say, the mask is here to stay for a very long time and cinema halls, sporting venues and places of worship will have anaemic attendance for quite some time. How we avoid crowding in public transport will be interesting, are we bo going to work from home whenever possible?

IT IS TIME FOR SPRING CLEANING

After every World Cup, football, cricket or hockey, except the winning team which may retain its captain, the heads of the losing captains usually roll. There is a reason for this; the teams want to make a fresh start so that next time they can win. The captain, the coach, their coterie all are dumped so that a spring cleaning of the team is possible. The old ways of thinking, planning, coaching, practicing, executing are all dumped and a change is ushered with a hope of revival. The stale stench is banished and a breath of fresh air is welcomed in. The W.H.O has lost the battle against COVID19 and urgently needs a spring cleaning. 

In this hour of crisis instead of providing global leadership by calling out China early for hiding the onset of the pandemic from the world the W.H.O has not only caused incalculable harm but has lost the credibility of the world. China is a repeat offender, it did not warn the world in time during the SARS outbreak and got away with the gross negligence then. It has done it again now and this is becoming a pattern. The Communist Party of China (CPC) considers pandemics to be global embarrassment instead of global health risk and tries to hide it from the world as long as possible and the W.H.O under the very controversial Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (TAG) makes it convenient for them to do as they wish. The outbreak of COVID19 started in November 2019 in Wuhan and public health measures of containment were initiated on January 23, 2020! Instead of calling out China for gross negligence which thrust the rest of the world into an avoidable pandemic by allowing unhindered international travel all these days, the W.H.O praised China for its quick response and creditable containment efforts! What is going on? Is the rest of the world blind?

Honestly, TAG has become a puppet in the hands of CPC and needs to go immediately. He has failed to show leadership when required and has lost our trust. He seems to be more concerned about the Chinese interest than about the world interest and merely stopping the US$ 6 billion American contribution to W.H.O is not the answer. It may in fact be counterproductive and as the Japanese Deputy Prime Minister Mr. Taro Aso feels the organisation can become a Chinese Health Organisation instead of remaining an unbiased Word Health Organisation. 

China, by becoming an irresponsible powerhouse is now threatening the world order. By its heft as a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council it did not allow a discussion on the pandemic at such a crucial juncture. Its Belt and Road design of economic expansion will leave a string of nations in neck deep Chinese debt, and never able to oppose it in the United Nations. The fact that it is selling flawed test kits and substandard Personal Protection Equipment (PPEs) to the world and further adding insult to injury should not go unnoticed. Both big powers and emerging economies will have to rethink their China policy and reduce their Chinese dependence. 

The pandemic has involved more countries than the two world wars combined. Not only will it change our societies and our economies but it will usher in a spring cleaning and a new world order. Both the W.H.O and the U.N need to be rejuvenated and vaccinated against Chinese intervention. The world is paying a very heavy price for buying cheap Chinese goods and services. Next time they negotiate with China this cost in terms of lost lives and livelihoods must be factored in.

BAISAKHI MAY BRING GOOD LUCK FOR OUR LOCKED DOWN ECONOMY.

The Rabi crop of wheat and maize is ready for harvest in my farm. Potatoes and onions are too ready in some fields. This is the time when we need the migrant labourers most to help us and we have to pay a heavy price because they are few in numbers as most leave for their villages to help their families in harvesting their own crops. This year however it is a very different story. Some in our village have lodged these labourers in the fields, giving them food, shelter and money, so that their crops can be harvested in time. Please add this cost to the cost of the crop and try to imagine how much should the MSP go up by in order to make this crop profitable?

The bargaining power of the farmer is reduced because they do not have long term storage space for their grains. The states have their own prices which are generally slightly above the MSP. All this makes farming frankly unprofitable or barely profitable. Consequently, they cannot build up any capital to reinvest and improve the productivity of their farms, or save for the draught. The farm insurance has surely helped, but only a bit.

A farmer in India has not smiled since ages. Letting the price of food grains to rise is politically uncomfortable and so irrespective of the crop conditions their prices are kept low so that the poor can afford them. A very noble gesture no doubt, but who is compensating the farmer? In the last 3 decades the salaries of government servants have multiplied 25 to 30 times but the cost of food grains have not seen even a 10 times leap. How long will the farmer silently bear this burden? And then you wonder why the agriculture sector is not galloping!

If there are no rains the crop withers in the heat and the farmer cannot smile. If there are too much rains there is a deluge and the crop gets destroyed and the farmer again cannot smile. If there are just adequate rains there is bumper crop but the prices in the market fall and again the farmer does not smile! This has been his story but nobody is listening.

But you know what; it is this poor chap, the Indian farmer, who is ready to become the spark plug of our locked down economy. In the present grim economic scenario agriculture is our key to quicken our economic revival. The harvest is on, despite all odds. The central and state procurement agencies can give a good price for this crop and the money can quickly reach the farming families. Farmers can then buy manufactured products and the demand thus created can restart the manufacturing sector.

Farming can be made profitable by advanced technology and farm mechanization. For the small farmers it just does not make sense to purchase any equipment of their own because there is not enough work for any size of machinery on any one farm. The solution is to have equipment that can be hired on an hourly basis by the farming community. This is being facilitated by IFFCO, the leading cooperative in India but we need cooperatives in every village.

Pulses are grown extensively by poor farmers in pockets of southern Rajasthan. The farmers sell their produce unprocessed and normally through a chain of middlemen. As the dal is unprocessed and the middlemen charge huge cuts, farmers receive a tiny fraction of the price paid by the consumer. Moreover, since the farmers are scattered and not unionized, the middlemen and traders are able to dictate the prices, causing further loss to the farmers. Why can’t farmer’s cooperative run their own mills? This will force traders to buy at a higher price, thereby benefiting the farmers. Since the mill will be located in the village, it will significantly cut transport costs. Finally, farmers who are part of the cooperative are able to control the process of dal making and selling and will receive a share of any future profits. If Kurian could do this for milk then why can’t the Amul model be tweaked for our agricultural produce?

By restarting the locked down economy the Indian farmer is once again ready to prove his utility in the economy of the nation. It is time the nation takes notice of his plight and stand by his side. He does not require handouts, loan waivers, subsidies, promises and sympathy; he needs freely competitive price structure, cooperative farming, infusion of corporate capital for organized retailing, processing and export. Inviting private Indian investments and FDI in building food cold chains, food processing, packaging, food storage and distribution needs the urgent attention of the government.

The government needs to fix the logistics chain despite the lockdown to prevent the undue spiking in the cost of fruits and vegetables by unscrupulous middlemen. These comprise a quarter of our agricultural income. The distance from the farmer’s fields to our dinner plate is too long, too circuitous and with too many middlemen in between. It is time to usher reforms in agriculture sector. It is time to reform the land leasing legislations to give farmers more options. Agriculture produce market committees should be defanged and healthy competitive pricing should be encouraged. 

LOCKDOWN AND THE TWO WORLDS

The developed and the developing world have had very contrasting views on massive lockdown of their cities and states. Even after seeing the Chinese template of disease containment, that is whatever little the Chinese would want us to see, countries like India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka promptly opted for lockdown but developed nations like the U.S, Italy, Spain, U.K, France and Germany were initially not prepared to do so. The results are getting painfully obvious now as their Corona curve climbed exponentially, overwhelming the advanced healthcare facilities in these nations. So why do you think they failed to act promptly?

While a lockdown along with social distancing, contact tracing, quarantine, washing hands and masking up surely helps in flattening the curve and give countries time to beef up their health infrastructure, it comes at a huge cost. With almost all economic activities suspended jobs are lost at a catastrophic pace and industries stop production and retailing. This compels governments everywhere to make the Hobson's choice between lives and livelihood. But then lives and livelihood cannot remain antagonistic for long - one has to stay alive to earn and if one stops earning how long can he stay alive?

There were many reasons why the government in developed countries did not promptly opt for lockdown.  These are: 

• Economy could be seriously affected
• Panic could be accelerated
• The economic loss incurred by a lockdown could be unbearable
• Government had to take the economic responsibility of the citizens. In developed nations the government and the organized sector is the employer on most instances.
• They overestimated themselves on immunity while underestimated the virulence of the virus. They did not believe that it was as strong, contagious and aggressive as it has proved to be eventually.

Now let us try to understand why the developing countries did not take a chance and promptly opted for lockdown:

·         Developing countries learned from measures of China that helped stem this epidemic, as well as from the mistakes of other developed nations that threw them into an uncertain nightmare.

·         Countries like India have huge population 1.3 billion people, a lot of whom are living in densely packed urban slums could easily foresee how deadly and uncontrollable the disease would be once it spread unchecked nationwide.

·         Developing countries spend less than 1% of GDP on health and so while on one hand their health infrastructure is weak and can easily be rattles on the other hand the nutritional status of their people too can leave them easy prey of the virus.

·         Developing countries by nature have and will take less economic responsibility and other accountability for the common people. In India less than 20% work in the organized sector and very few among them are employed by the government. 

·         Countries like, the USA, UK and Spain have announced to pay around 90% of the salary of all public and private wage earners affected by the lockdown. Even if governments in India, Bangladesh etc. pay the wages of the government servants and the organized sector uninterruptedly but what happens to the people employed in the unorganized sector, which is almost 4 times the size?

·         Developed countries have a very effective social security net, which is almost completely absent in developing countries. So disease protection is far economical and hence lockdown makes sense.

The Indian government deserves appreciations for being proactive and addressing the issues of the unorganized sector by direct fund transfer by using its JAM trinity. Food kitchens have opened up in the cities and district administration has been entrusted with the responsibility of ensuring food reaches every mouth. Till now it seems that barring a few exceptions they have as taken the right steps at right time. But the million dollar question that stares us and all developing countries is how long can we afford the lockdown?

In the last three decades our most notable achievement has been large scale poverty eradication. But this new group of approximately 400 million, which has pulled itself out of terrible poverty, does not have deep pockets. Their savings are limited and even a small illness and its treatment can throw them back into the quicksand of hopelessness. Even the best relief measures are no substitute for the jobs they have lost. Then again, the economy cannot be turned on by a switch. It will take time to warm up and start giving dividends. The government will have to do a lot of hand holding to bring it back on rails.

Let us hope that we are able to gradually open the lockdown in a staggered way. Careful data driven easing of restrictions yet maintaining social distancing, avoiding unnecessary outdoor activities, and proper hand hygiene can ensure a phased return of all economic activities. But this will take time.

DOCTORS ARE AT A CROSSROAD TODAY

Doctors are putting everything on the line. They're walking into a wildfire of a pandemic, often facing hostile or depressed patients and anxious and agitated relatives with professional calm and dexterity. That takes a monumental amount of courage and deserves profound respect. I and my tribe are there as reserves because we have been told that ‘they also help who stand and wait’.

“Am I doing the right thing?” This is a question which I have been asking myself time and time again in the last two weeks. I am a Plastic Surgeon and so barring occasions like trauma and vascular injury my job is considered “non-essential”, and as per the instructions of the government all non-essential surgical services should be postponed till the time we are sure we have seen the end of this prevailing COVID19 pandemic. And it is from this decision of choosing what is essential and what is a non-essential, stems out my moral dilemma.

Why is the breast lump which I saw the other day and diagnosed as a early breast cancer in a 35 year old mother of two not essential? Am I morally correct in postponing her surgery? Why is the surgery of 18 month old child with Cleft Palate non essential when I know that if I postpone her surgery she may never get a normal speech all her life? So you can appreciate how thin and barely indistinguishable this line between essential and non-essential is……..and still I and many other doctors are searching for it all the time.

Doctors routinely are finding it difficult to provide the kind of care they know their patients need. If we choose not to see patients during the lockdown we are cowards and if we do see them despite all odds then we are greedy and irresponsible. And God forbid, if one of our patients turns out to be COVID positive and we are picked up on contact tracing, then we are considered criminally negligent!

We have a deeply held moral belief of putting our patients first. It truly has very little to do with the oath we took and much more to do with the holy ambers of professionalism in which we were tempered. In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the same belief has morphed and magnified, joined by new threats that come with severely constrained resources. It will be more critical than ever for administrators and clinicians to work together during this time to assess resources, to manage those that are limited, and to face the profound risks attendant in this rapidly evolving environment. COVID patients are a priority no doubt, but all non-COVID patients cannot afford to wait. This is time to show leadership. It is time to find a way. Failure to work together may leave a generation of clinicians doubting and distrustful of the moral fabric of our healthcare system and its leadership.

At no stage am I suggesting that all elective surgeries should be thrown open. Doctors in the U.S. watched, fearing that a tsunami of patients would overwhelm their healthcare systems, preventing them from adequately caring for the ill or managing their own substantial risk. Despite clear evidence of a pathogenic wildfire tearing through China and Italy, consuming personal protective equipment (PPE) at unprecedented rates, many US hospitals continued to perform elective procedures—burning through PPE that would soon be critical to protect healthcare workers—for weeks after the first alarms sounded. And today they are repenting their decision. Only a few weeks into the US spread, but fully 4 months after the disease appeared in China, the dire straits of many US hospitals, and their failure to adequately prepare, is becoming clear.

We don’t want to see hospitals in India run out, of masks, face shields, and respirators. This represents an untenable situation for doctors. Patients will be in desperate need of doctors and doctors will face unacceptably high risk to care for them. Both corporate hospitals and small and medium size hospitals know that elective surgeries are the cornerstone of our hospital system's operating model—and the negative impact due to the cancellations of these procedures cannot be overstated. With elective procedures and all nonessential patient visits canceled indefinitely, many hospitals are probably worried whether their systems would survive the pandemic.

Hospitals are not simply places of treatment; they are also avenues of employment for many. A hospital with its doors shut is like a dilapidated temple abandoned by both God and His/Her worshippers. The self employed doctors, who usually own these hospitals, have to pay all the bills, all the salaries, all the bank loan installments but keep their hospitals closed! While there are no avenues of earning, their expenditure has only marginally come down. Prolong lockdown can result in loss of jobs because most of these hospitals run on narrow margins of profit. Again they confront another dilemma whom to retain and whom to let go? Technical excellence, position in the scale of usefulness and personal preferences will be called into play to make these ugly choices, further difficult.

Protecting the workforce is vital. Skilled, experienced professionals and support staff are the most valuable asset that any institution possesses. Losing them to COVID-19, whether for the short term or the long term—through death or disillusionment—will take a terrible toll. Doing whatever it takes to keep them safe must be a priority.

So both as a clinician and as an employer a doctor today standing at a crucial crossroad. His/her loyalty to the nation keeps him/her home but the physician in him knows that all the surgeries he is postponing is not non-essential, and deep in his heart he is a worried man. Add to this the prospect of economic decline and if the lockdown continues then even losing his trusted skilled helping hands. Today we are a worried bunch of doctors.

COVID19 PANDEMIC – A TRAGEDY WAITING TO HAPPEN

It is very tempting to blame China for the current pandemic but from an ecological standpoint can we hold them accountable? We may never prove that they were responsible but the fact that they have been caught with their hand in the cookie jar cannot be denied. But what is also undeniably true is other humans are no less responsible. 

Yes Coronavirus and most other emerging viruses are from our wildlife, but they did not willingly come to the Wuhan wet market to contaminate us. By eating these wild animals, by trading in their body parts and by trading wild species openly in the markets in places like Wuhan, we have invited their diseases and their viruses. 

Despite being the most evolved species in the world we have failed to act intelligently. Our species pillages nature and our fellow species as if there were no tomorrow! And if we continue our own merry way, a day may come where there may be no tomorrow for us. And this will not be the first time for such a thing to happen on our planet.

There have been 5 major mass extinction events in the past in our planet in 540 million years of its life and we may be terribly close to the sixth. In the past these extinctions have occurred because of huge ecological disruptions which in turn annihilated multiple species. The events have been either because of factors external to our planet like Asteroid impact or internal to our planet like major changes in carbon cycle altering our planet’s ecology, volcanic activities, increase greenhouse gases and global warming. This will surely be the first human inflicted self destruction. 

Whether we like it or not, our life on this planet is intimately dependent on how we treat the other residents of this planet. Forests, grasslands, rivers, oceans, and the flora and fauna that call them home are all our living fellow residents and it is our responsibility to take care of them. Clean air, clean water, climate stabilization, healthy food and absolute ban on wildlife products are just non negotiable. If we invade tropical forests and other wild landscapes, which harbor so many species of animals and plants, and within these creatures so many unknown microbes, bacteria and viruses, we are inviting trouble. Felling the trees, killing and capturing the wild animals for trade of their body parts is surely lucrative to a few but will spell doom for many more.

It is time the world leaders to understand that global biodiversity is vital for our healthy existence in this planet. Plastic in our oceans, chemical effluent in our rivers, toxic contaminants in our soil, noxious gases in our air are all together disrupting the balance of nature. Our exotic food habits need to be tamed down. The consumption of Civets, possibly infected by bats, caused the 2002-03 SARS outbreak. It was proven but no lessons were learned. Bats from a cave in Yunan, 1000 miles southwest of Wuhan, continued to appear in the wet market in Wuhan and were freely sold. Not just bats but diverse animals and birds, from duck to hen and wild birds of prey are routinely kepf in close proximity and captivity and the innocent domestic fowl also gets infected causing transfer of dangerous pathogens. So you can appreciate this viral pandemic is just being fancifully called novel Coronavirus pandemic. There is nothing novel about it. It was a disaster waiting to happen and squarely because some choices which we human are making repeatedly.

Our ancestors who have passed on to us the great Hindu traditions had always held nature and her inhabitants in very high esteem. Goddess Earth, or Bhoodevi, deserves the reverence of humans because she feeds us, gives us shelter, and provides materials to be used in our daily lives. If we do not take care of her, she will not take care of us. This is something increasingly seen in today’s time where bushfires, melting of polar ice, tornadoes, tsunamis, typhoons and earthquakes are getting increasingly frequent.  And now this virus pandemic is the biological weapon which we have self inflicted on ourselves.