It is two years since COVID-19 developed into a pandemic. As the first wave struck India in 2020, we had a series of lockdowns disrupting life and throwing everything off gear. As we grappled with the virus, 2020 ended with the prospect of vaccination against the virus.
We were celebrating our dwindling number of cases in early 2021, when the second wave knocked us down. Rising cases, overflowing hospitals and clamour for medical oxygen, remdesivir and ventilators were overshadowed by round-the-clock burning of pyres and bodies floating in the Ganga. The government stepped up vaccination and as the cases ebbed, life resumed hesitatingly and we thought we had won over COVID-19. Soon COVID-appropriate behaviour was forgotten and the virus came back in a new ‘avatar’, Omicron. As 2022 set in, COVID restrictions resurfaced and we scamper back for missed vaccination or the third dose!
The pandemic has taught us the uncertainties of life and why things should not be taken for granted. Illness can strike anyone anytime. As a physician, I had warned people that COVID is one disease whose outcome is not sure for anyone who needs hospitalisation. Emergence of breakthrough infections in vaccinated people suggests the virus can outsmart us all, WHO and CDC included. The only way to get out of the path of the virus is to vaccinate over 70-80% of population of each country by ending vaccine inequality.
COVID has also taught us not to fiddle with nature. It is widely believed that the novel coronavirus jumped from bats to human beings. The prolonged lockdowns during the first wave gave us a glimpse of how man has interfered with his surroundings. One could see snow-clad mountains from hundreds of miles away and gaze at the night sky like never before. Wild animals being seen in locked cities told us how we have impinged upon their territory while expanding our habitat. As people stopped commuting, pollution levels improved drastically and the air quality index improved.
The second wave impressed upon us the frailty of life, how little separates life from death. Seeing our loved ones suffering taught us not to take things for granted ever, and above all, the realisation that money cannot buy everything. A millionaire could be as helpless as a pauper. It also warned us to improve our health infrastructure and not to berate our healthcare workers. It showed two contrasting sides of human nature; people who hoarded drugs and fleeced people in their hour of misery and the others who risked their lives to help, nurse and feed the needy. We also realised how gratifying is spending time with your family.
The world will be a safer place to live if we follow the lessons learnt in the last two years of the pandemic.
