Covid-19: Real fight begins in the state

Monday Musing

[ Ranjit Sinha ]

The world is fighting a different kind of war in the year 2020, and the fight will probably continue for one more year. The most powerful nations, like the USA, are in a mess. Tall tales about development by countries across the globe have been thrown into the corona cauldron.

Along with the world, the government of India and the state government are at a loss, and are feeding hope and expectation to defeat the pandemic since there is no proven medicine for Covid-19 disease.

In Arunachal, the real Covid-19 threat began with the beginning of the unlocking process during the month of June. With the arrival of the returnees to their own state from across the country, the people of the state are almost sure that they have to be proactive and prepared to fight against the pandemic.

However, observing the world phenomenon, we cannot say that the people in the Itanagar capital region are in a comfortable position, nor can we be bold enough to say that the source of transmission has been zeroed down on and the extended lockdown will not be extended further.

It is a crucial time to be more positive, and to maintain sound mind and good health, but one cannot come to a conclusion regarding the spread of the pandemic. Rather, we can say that the real fight against the pandemic begins right now.

The people of the state, including the bureaucrats and the politicians, are on the same boat and are fighting the virus. But the real fighters are the frontline Covid-19 workers and the common people, not the people in power. At the present juncture, the main function of the state government is to extend every logistic support to the police personnel, the health workers and the voluntary Covid-19 warriors.

We cannot deny the fact that providing health infrastructure for hassle-free treatment of Covid-19 patients is an important task at the hands of government. At the same time, logistic support from the government to the health workers, the police personnel and the volunteers is most important.

Hopefully, the doctor community, police personnel and the common citizens of the state will get enough time to prepare themselves in the fight against Covid-19. The majority of the health workers, who were not mentally prepared at the initial stage, are now doing a wonderful job without caring about their own lives.

A pandemic like Covid-19 is not the first one in human history. We can take the example of the Spanish flu just after World War-I, and AIDS, which is claiming millions of lives across the globe till date. However, Covid-19 is causing human suffering, public anxiety and economic destruction on an unprecedented scale.

Everyone knows it well – Covid-19 is an imported disease – imported knowingly or unknowingly from a foreign country – and we have welcomed it in every state of the country, which is an outcome of humanitarian compulsion.

Now the onus of fighting Covid-19 lies on everyone. Even though there is no particular medicine or vaccine, we can keep the impact of this pandemic down to zero level only by changing our lifestyle and mental attitude.

Let us fight together with the frontline workers against the pandemic by maintaining all kinds of etiquette, including physical distancing and good health.