Coronavirus is nature's riposte to human callousness

When would humanity become happy, free of suffering, and disease? How far is that day of total prosperity, opulence, and complete health? Theology explains that nature is one way that God revealed himself to humanity. Science is a composite of various branches of it, including Biology, Chemistry, etc. and is based on empirical evidence. Nature is, thus, the sum of all the disciplines of science.

Wuhan is a city in China, separated by the Yangtze and Han rivers. A new viral infection - Coronavirus Disease 2019 (Covid-19) - is first reported in Wuhan and then turned soon into a global epidemic. Covid-19 is an unprecedented epidemic, and the loss of lives it caused is horrifying and disastrous. This, unquestionably, is a natural disaster that can be defeated.

Last Saturday evening, I went out of my house after an extended stay. This place is familiar to me as my car passes the same lanes, roads, and road exits, at least twice daily. However, the daily and unremarkable glimpses of the shops, houses, electric poles and sidewalks remained unchanged. Today, in the bright sunlight, everything appeared new to me. Every known thing seemed to be unknown. This unusual Saturday evening is devoid of busy roads, movement of people, sound, and music. This tranquillity existing everywhere made the atmosphere magnificent and superb. But this same tranquillity was, for some reason, frightening and alarming, signalling an impending danger, a forthcoming ambush by nature itself and, an inkling of a looming catastrophe. The pleasant weather made me go back home rather than stay and enjoy it. When I came back home, I pondered over what I have just seen. I learned about the latest updates on the global epidemic of Covid-19.

The splendid and high-tech city of New York is the financial, cultural, and media capital of the world, where Nasdaq and NYSE and the United Nations General Assembly are situated. People from several parts of the world live in New York and speak nearly 800 languages. New York City, with the suburbs, if considered as a sovereign country, stands at 12th place in the list of countries by GDP. This city, which is regarded as one of the healthiest cities to live in the USA now, became the hotbed of a new viral infection known as Covid-19.

Covid-19 is the second-largest attack, if not the first, on the city of New York after 9/11. New York hospitals are out of beds and ventilators. Hospitals are deficient in doctors and medical staff. New York subway trains are full of homeless people without any personal protective equipment. A patient going to a hospital told me that she was uncertain that she could ever walk on the planet again and would speak to me. A 65-year-old man, whom I knew for last nine years, told me that he had a cold, dry cough and had difficulty breathing. He said he had called 911 twice, the ambulance came to his home but rejected to take him because they were prioritising the patients whom to consider first. Never did I speak to him after that day because he died the next morning. He was tested corona positive.

Even after taking many measures by the State and Federal governments, as I write this, the death toll in New York reached 1,3084, which is 40% of total deaths in the country, explains the gravity of the situation. Despite such a gigantic health crisis, it is unfortunate that an opinion clash occurred between The President and Governors of some States on the issue of whether to implement social distancing and stay-at-home or not. Whether to liberate people from their homes or the disease.

Shopping malls, cinema theatres, bars and restaurants stopped functioning. In developed countries, students are learning from home online. Software engineers are working remotely. Trains stopped running, and flights are not flying — an unprecedented situation. Unemployment became rampant, and the poor became poorer. Both the production and purchase of goods decreased — salaries not given to employees in many places, which altogether is hinting an impending social tragedy. A global recession is inevitable, asserted outstanding economists, postulating the Covid-19 epidemic as the cause.

After learning about these, I am amazed and dumbfounded. I am appalled because all this happened in less than two months, leading to an economic and a health cataclysm, which is equivalent to a huge earthquake, a conflagration, or a tsunami.

Cell phone calls and email messages from worried parents, relatives, and friends who live overseas are overflowing. "Please stay home" became a piece of hackneyed advice. "Take care of yourself, and your family said a friend. Health is wealth," said an uncle. After becoming conscious of what is happening, I can neither eat nor sleep adequately, told my parents, because parents love their children more than they love themselves. The prompt reporting of the ongoing situation here in New York, by local TV news channels in India, added to the fear of people living far away from here. False religious leaders jumped in to use the situation. The scenario is appearing as if the Dooms Day is impending, said a common man in a TV show.

Now in this dire situation, the healthcare team is the only fighter in the war field. Police are playing an extraordinary new role. They are not chasing any thief or a criminal but trailing behind a new unknown international killer.

I started pondering about God, who became everyone's last hope in their predicament — regarded as the only recourse. All that made me think further about the basis of human existence. Delving further deeper and backward, we have to stop at a subatomic particle known as a quark, which is the smallest particle found by the human scientific endeavour, even Big Bang Theory takes us back to stop us at a primeval atom.

Thus, I thought, we can assume that there exists a hidden force behind the very beginning of the universe due to which soil, water, air, and therefore life exist today. And that force is God who may be prayed by different names. The above argument entails that God exists who believe in him and is visible in the form of Mother Nature. That nature which encompasses science, medicine, disease, a doctor, his treatment, and everything.

A country, person, or the failure of any government is not responsible for this disaster; instead, nature itself acted as a wake-up call to humanity in slumber. Coronavirus has no partiality or bias. It does not differentiate on the grounds of religion, race, economic standards, or their geographic location. I found this as the only fact to understand and console myself.

The post epidemic effects may be disastrous in the field of global economy. Still, they would further purify our moral consciousness and remind us about our moral obligations as a human being. An educated person would soon realise that his knowledge has no practical use until he disseminates it to others.

The whole world would be, then, replete with peace and prosperity. Jubilation and joy will encompass humanity. It is impossible to win nature, but we can calm its anger. History recorded that in 1854 the cholera pandemic in London, though new of its kind, was controlled successfully. In the 18th century, smallpox killed 14 percent of the Europeans, who contracted that disease. Edward Jenner, then, came out with a vaccine for smallpox and saved humanity. It will undoubtedly happen in the case of Covid-19 too.

(The writer is a pharmacist, who hails from Warangal and lives in New York. Views expresses are personal)