CORONA PHOBIA

          CORONA PHOBIA

                                                                                                                                  Jugal Kishore, Principal

Open any news channel these days, you will see visuals of hospitals & their collapsed health infrastructure, doctors and supporting staff in PPE kits,  crying and helpless relatives of patients, moaning and restless patients waiting in queues to be admitted in hospitals, some even lying on the stretchers and others even on floors, patients waiting in auto rickshaws with oxygen masks on their faces, acute dearth of oxygen and  ventilators……… are some of the horrifying scenes which are constantly being shown to us . If you watch TV for even some time now a days- you will definitely get depressed. Negativity will cloud you. Your mental situation gets further aggravated when you see visuals from the cremation yards and burial grounds. Doctors & supportive staff members getting regularly infected, dearth of medicines, election rallies, protests etc. further put salt on the wound.

Now the question arises-what is to be done? What is the need of the hour? I would like to advise all news channels to stop showing horrible scenes again and again rather start  showing interviews of eminent doctors who should educate  people as to how to overcome this pandemic. What remedies could be taken up in home isolation? Which precautions should be taken by us? A couple of  days back , I watched an interview of Dr Randeep Singh Guleria, who is Director of AIIMS New Delhi. It was so educative that all of us must listen to it again & again. It will be better if his interview is dubbed in all regional languages and telecast on all local news channels.

Secondly-the daily rise in the number of infected persons (which is more than 300,000 a day) also adds to our fears. This figure should not be telecast again and again. It will be appropriate if it could be officially declared once or twice in a day. Its frequent mention may be reduced.

Thirdly the interviews of Covid survivors, how they overcame it, could also be of huge benefit to those who are struggling with it. Further veterans of Ayurveda and Yoga might discuss some effective home remedies. 

I recently knew an incident which elucidates how fear might kill those who are struggling for life in ICUs. One of my old colleagues recently was deprived of her daughter ( who was in her early thirties) and was admitted in a hospital in Varanasi. She had some symptoms of covid but when RT-PCR test was administered she was tested negative. She was happy to see her report. It happened on 31^st March 2021 and on 2^nd April 2021 suddenly she had problem in breathing and her SpO2 level started decreasing. She was shifted to a hospital where she started showing signs of improvement. There were other patients on ventilators to her left and right. She was finding it increasingly difficult to stay in ICU. She called her father and wanted to be taken out. Before something could be done-she breathed her last. Post mortem report stated the cause of her death was her heart failure. She must have been horrified by the scenes of ICU as she did want to come out of it.

I wish to urge everyone to remain optimistic during these bad times. Good days will come again. Till then-take care and stay safe.