Corona Pandemic - To War Against COVID-19 or To Live With COVID-19

Suresh Kishanrao*

Abstract

On an auspicious day of Eid-Ul Fitr the 25th May 2020 India got Jersey no-10, an extremely popular number in the sports arena. India holds the 9th position among the countries affected by the COVID-19 Pandemic as on 28th May 2020. Government of India confirmed a biggest 24 hrs spike of 7713 cases on 29th May 2020 to reach a total tally of 168,780. The death total crossed the number of 4978. Thus the case count quadrupled and deaths tripled in the first 25 days since 1 May 2020 when special trains started ferrying labourers from the badly effected cities to their native villages, followed within a week bringing back by flights Indians and expatriates from abroad. The overall recovery rates have reached around 48.5% of the affected cases to a total of 82,000 on date. While the public health professionals in the country do not feel we are fighting against any enemy but highly infectious virus infection that we don’t know much about and neither there is established treatment or prevention except simple epidemiological ways of minimizing the transmission through social distancing, wearing masks when mingling with others, hand hygiene and cough etiquette. On the other hand, our political and bureaucratic seem to understand a war metaphor when it comes to confronting great challenges. But this COVID-19 pandemic is neither a war nor, a known enemy to strategize the victory. Today we are experimenting many options of treating serious patients in dedicated hospitals protecting the health personnel attending them using personal protective equipment (PPE). While global and national efforts are being made aggressively to make an effective vaccine available or over next 6-12 months the community spread of infection will lead to herd immunity as against many other viruses like SARS, NIPHA, MERS etc. that we have learnt to live with. Basically, I would drive a message home that we do not have to fight or win any war as much as we need to learn to make peace with its existence in our world for long.