CAREFREE CORONA -CARELESS PUBLIC

 

Yesterday, I watched a TV correspondent in one of the cities of Punjab, appealing people to wear masks. He in fact was doing a great job. He went inside a bus and met two middle aged women who were huddling together along with their two children. None of them had masks on their faces. When the correspondent asked them to wear Masks-they apparently got perturbed. One of the children sitting in lap, reminded his mother that she had the one in her purse. So hurriedly she pulled it on her face. The other woman also followed the suit by covering her face with her chunni.

An old man with a flowing white beard and a turban loosely tied on his head turned around from the corner of a street to encounter the correspondent. He, on an indication, slowed down and inquiringly looked at the correspondent. Then he put his one foot on the ground and listened to his question. “Why don’t you wear a mask?” asked the correspondent, “Don’t you know how is corona  killing people?” To this he simply said that there was no corona and added that people were simply spreading rumours.

Now he encountered another middle aged man. “Why aren’t you wearing a mask?” said he. The man replied with a lot of confidence on his face that there was no need for him to wear it as he had already taken two jabs of corona vaccine. This poor fellow does not know that people are getting infected even after two shots of vaccine.

Two elderly women were heading towards the correspondent on foot. He moved towards them and asked the one to wear mask properly. She pulled her mask to cover her nose and said they had just gone to eat something in a restaurant while the other pulled her duppatta to cover her face. This is very sad that even educated people do not wear mask properly.

I am fearfully astonished to see how casually people are taking this pandemic. The pictures I have tried to portray above replicate the people’s behavior in almost all cities of our country where the daily tally of covid positive cases is nearly touching 400 thousand. Then I realize that these common people are not being adequately educated about this virus.

The other day I found a person who was not wearing a mask properly. I tried to educate him. I said,” Do you know the size of Corona virus? He said,” Not exactly.” The teacher in me came to the fore. I said more than 1000 corona viruses might sit on the tip of a hair. Unbelievingly, he said, but on TV screen it appears to be sooooo big and that too in multi colours. I had no answer to his observation.

One thing on which all TV channels should focus is to talk about the asymptomatic patients as they are extremely dangerous. The one who gets symptoms, isolates and gets the test done and also starts the treatment. But asymptomatic patients neither know that they are carriers of this deadly virus nor their near and dear ones know about it. So they freely mingle in public and families and are spreading this virus like a forest fire.

 I would exhort that whenever any of your family members or friends comes to meet you from outside-treat him as if he is corona positive and take all precautions of social distancing. Let him first dispose of his mask in a covered dustbin possible outside the house, wash his hands for at least 20 -30 seconds with soap and only then he should mingle in family. I would suggest you to talk to your relatives and friends not to visit you till the virus subsides and you also do not visit anyone until and unless it is extremely urgent. I have done it and I also do not visit any one.