SURVIVING CORONAVIRUS

The Story of the Survival

I stared. I stared blankly at the plain white wall which stood in front of me. The wall was as boring as the days of theses past few weeks. But the wall could be painted if desired to make it less boring whereas my days were filled with the darkness of boredom no one could get rid of. Why? What's the reason for such severe depression one might think?

'Someone' was running around the whole world sucking the interesting ventures of life one by one. He was huge in his own company. One of the biggest. You know the big bully in our school who is up to no good ,the rogue ,that is him.

"I am going to make your life miserable", he says.

Most of the time he succeeds. When faced with much determination, repartee and understanding of what he is and why he is who he is, we might defeat him. Push him down from the Himalayan peak he is sitting on top of .To do so we must use force , we may even need to get some help and co-operation. Similar to this bully is our special someone.

Corona virus or covid-19. This novel virus is the big bully who is presently hampering the normal lives of millions including mine. The name "corona virus" is derived from Latin , meaning "crown" or "wreath." So you get why it turned out to be so egocentric and bigoted which are the the common ill-traits of one who wears a crown.

I mentioned that our someone was huge ,didn't I ?The genome size of the corona viruses ranges from approximately 26 to 32 kilo bases (really really tiny in common human language) , one of the largest among RNA virus . They have characteristic club-shaped spikes that project from their surface which I (and no one else) jest is for poking and killing people. I know lame joke. How can a tiny little virus poke or even worse kill? Believe it or not it has successfully taken the life of over 256,541 people world wide as of date.

It is said that the origin of this pandemic causing virus was from China. So we all assumed that it wouldn't last very long since it was 'made in China' (Get it ?). But boy were we wrong, the virus shook the world ; essential supplies vanished into thin air as people began to 'panic buy', schools were being shut down, events were being postponed and the countries went on total lock-down.

Millennials who used to go online and say "There are too many boring people in the world" and "I wish I was dead" started wearing masks and used sanitizers to save their 'boring and worthless little lives'. Then came on another phase of this monstrous bully. The phase where people on account of it began to fight among each other on factors like its origin leading to incidents of xenophobia and discrimination against Chinese people. The world was crashing before our own eyes while we were trying to create speculations and misinformation regarding the cause of the catastrophe.

While all this was happening, I was in my room spending the rest of my corona lock-down break pondering about how I should spend the rest of my free days. I had nothing on my agenda. I had run out of activities to do. I had read and re-read all the books I had, binge watched movies and series until water dripped down my eyes, listened to music, played a lot of games, drew and danced. When I was bored doing those I was forced to take desperate measures like study. I hated studying the stuff I had went through once so I got my next grade books and medical journals online and read them. I was extremely happy when the night came because I had something on my agenda during night. I was supposed to sleep. Most of the days I slept like a fatigued dog but some days are just not that good. The trouble was longer the lock-down went on, the more I lost track of time. By then end of the second week none knew what day it was.

New memes came to life. Corona virus memes were spreading at a faster rate than the virus itself. The world compared the virus to professor Umbridge in the Harry Potter books (she banned every group events and people were supposed to maintain distance) which I thought was apt (God! I hate her).

My first visit to the neighboring supermarket was truly memorable. The market was packed like sardines in a can but with people. The rush was immense. On seeing others panic, the calm myself became bewildered. I rushed towards the home supplies aisle and looked around. People were fighting among themselves to buy toilet paper and cereal and when I looked into the shopping baskets of some, all I could see was jumbo sized tissue packets. Another sight which brought me back to reality was an old man leaning down in the same aisle looking calmly terrified at the empty aisle of supplies. The man who have probably went through similar catastrophes in his life time was surprised at the naive crowd. The mental behavior of the citizens ,with no good comprehension of the situation, took a detour. Is this good for us?

Everything in life have a positive and negative side. Pros and cons of the lock-down is a topic quite large. The World Health Organization's definition of health is "a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity." Is the lock-down helping us to improve our health as a whole? Of course not, we are supposed to maintain social distancing, we are basically imprisoned in our homes (maybe not as bad as prison but still). Various studies relating to this consider the covid-19 lock-down to be the world's largest physiological experiment.

These PTSD problems can be solved with a good system of protocols like R-TEP (Recent Traumatic Episode Protocol) and G-TEP (Group Traumatic Episode Protocol). Another category facing problems are adults and parents who have spent the better part of their lives being an extrovert. The new generation uses the usual online sources to keep himself entertained while the older generation aren't able to do the same. These are some of the cons which may lead to BPD (Borderline personality disorder) and may force the people to become a dissenter.

Nonetheless, this lock-down and quarantine measures are of out most importance for the sake of our life and economy. In the absence of treatment or a vaccine, ceasing most human contact is really the only way to stop the spread of the virus. Given the rapid spread of the virus, social lock-down is urgent to bring overall transmission down, and see whether testing followed by isolation could be effective - this is all in an attempt to 'flatten the curve' or reduce infections to avoid overwhelming health systems.

Ah! For some of us introverts the corona drama is a blessing in disguise. Quarantine means no party (no need to dress up and explain about your future towards your fifty ninth uncle who will be judgmental no matter what ), prom was now done virtually, new learning opportunities ; my mother trying to learn Spanish through the internet is hilarious (she reads a text cómo estás like 'COME-Ohh ESCATSY-YEh', she releases a mouthful of air after every word) ; it means Netflix and chill all the time ( people finally appreciate your wisdom & knowledge for movies in this lock-down and call you up for recommendations)and for us students whose whole life was spent on preparations for exam could finally relax with no upcoming tests. These people find out that their normal daily lifestyle is called 'quarantine'.

The people who are trying to ruin the efforts made by the honorable citizens by spending rumors and myths regarding the virus are just the worst. They deserve to be punished because their influence on the mind is immense. It's much larger than what they think their potential influence is.
On the contrary, we have the memes and tweets relating to the situation. People using all their creative juices to make people laugh and relaxed during these disastrous times is simply amazing. So I say read those and laugh out as loud as you want. There is no one within a six foot radius to here you go psycho.

It is the sole responsibility of every citizen to do the level best to bring out the light in the darkness. We must fight with strength and sacrifice for success. Make the best out of every situation. The quality of life is not important during these ruinous times but life itself is what matters. So let us understand the value of life and strive for the welfare, security and most importantly the safety of everyone around us. Do not lose hope. Life throws many obstacles at us. Keeping our focus on our passion in life and the things we enjoy we will make it. We will survive.