COVID-19 isn’t the first pandemic that has challenged and threatened human’s existence. Throughout the course of history, many epidemics have occurred and brought upon difficult times, sometimes even signaling the end of civilization. If we recall some of the deadly outbreaks in history, the dead tolls and figures remind us how a small bacteria or virus threatens the entire human existence on planet earth. And these outbreaks remind us how we human beings regardless of gender, nationality, race, status, origin, religion share the same human anatomy. These bacteria and viruses don’t differentiate among us. Infront of them, we fall equally vulnerable.

Outbreaks have occurred in different parts of the world at different times in our history. An epidemic wiped out a prehistoric village in China about 5,000 years ago. It occurred so quickly that people didn’t have time to burn the dead bodies which were stuffed inside a house. That epidemic didn’t spare any age group. The archaeological site of this epidemic is known as “Hamin Mangha”. The Black death (1346-1353) is estimated to have wiped out over half of Europe’s population. Cocoliztli epidemic killed 15 million inhabitants of Mexico and Central America. And by the time the Russian plague (1770-1772) ended, more than 100,000 people were dead. Flu pandemic (1889-1890) killed 1 million people and just took five weeks to reach peak mortality.

History is recorded so that we can learn from the mistakes of our past but unfortunately that’s often not the case. These big figures are not to scare you during this time of crisis neither is to pacify you with the fact that we haven’t crossed such figures. But to state the fact that even though we have reached so much advancement in terms of technology and economics development, we are still lacking so much behind in terms of scientific research and innovation in the field of public health and citizen’s welfare. So much GDP is spent on defence (nuclear and war weapons) and not on the defence from the real threat to humanity. And our leaders are busy propagating the idea of building wall, creating the illusion of utopian society, and changing the colours of the paper currency in the name of development.

With the lack of good leadership and governance, it’s difficult to develop a state and for that, everybody is equally responsible and should step forward to participate in the political discussion. It’s easy to say that I don’t have any political interest but when somebody rules for five years, every decision of that leader affects the whole society and interferes in everybody’s lives. We as citizens living in a democratic country shouldn’t be ignorant about who we choose as our leaders and also how we let them govern our state. I brought the topic about politics here in the discussion about pandemic because we cannot separate these two fields like separate science and social science textbooks. How a leader takes responsibility and decisions during such emergency determines how well and quickly we can overcome this crisis. This pandemic is not going to end the human civilization as media promotes by provoking anxiety and fear among public. But at the same time, we shouldn’t be ignorant and careless about not taking the precautionary measures by staying inside, washing our hands with soap, wearing masks, keeping social distance. Lock down of a state or nation is a good measure to control the spread of infection in this modern global village where travel is easier than ever before. But there are negative side effects of this measure which especially affects the lives of the poor people who are deprived of their basic needs due to lack of income and extreme poverty. It’s the responsibility of both the state and its citizen to step forward to help them instead of playing the blame game of putting responsibility over one another.

I believe that unlike previous epidemics of our history, we can overcome this pandemic if we unite together as human beings. Instead of creating communal riots and spreading hatred by spreading false information, stigmatizing and stereotyping about the origin of this infection, let’s act as rational human being. Each one of us have the potential of making a difference and contributing in lessening the suffering of others in our own ways. And most importantly, those who are more privileged for having the all basic needs such as food, clean
water, cloth, house, sanitation and healthcare facilities can step forward to help those who don’t have these basic necessities. Instead of looking at the casualties, which hinders our inner peace leading to various mental  health issues. We can choose to look at the positive side of this pandemic. Our mother earth is getting the break from the traffic, all kinds of pollution and the nuisances that we have created. The sky looks much clearer, the air feels much fresher, birds are having a good flight time alone, and we are all getting the longest vacation that we wished for during our Monday’s mornings. So, let’s utilize this quite time to reflect upon ourselves, pursue our passions which was always in the back of our mind, practice gratefulness for being alive today, be mindful of our actions, speech and thought, spend quality time with loved ones and create or do something meaningful. Let humanity win over this virus.

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