The end of pandemic fuss

The samovar of the pandemic is running dry. All healthy and sick persons in urban centres have suffered from fever. Omicron has been more democratic. But the massive preparation with billions of rupees aside to fight the third Covid-19 war is drawing its end. By mid-February, the two-year pandemic will end to be endemic with the common cold and fever rebranded as Omicron. 

A logical mind can manage every situation unmistakably. How does a person develop a logical mind? It is an art of reasoning that comes through a perfect understanding of the situation and a mature approach to it.

The Covid-19 is threatening again. But now fewer people are worried about it for two reasons. First, the exaggerated fear about the pandemic is only a threat to their livelihood. Second, the wave is only the rebranding of common colds, fever and coughs that people used to treat with home remedies. Still, educated people are worried. They bother too much about the pandemic and resort to testing. Flu and the common cold are endemic, which recurs with the unstoppable weather change. Today, if a person with flu – fever and cough – goes for a test, the report will be positive for Omicron virus, the new variant of the virus that has been rocking the world since December 2019. The viral fever is always infectious but treated mostly at home. This fever is now branded as Covid-19!

Since the outbreak of the pandemic people in cities have put on a mask. Most people in cities have already taken vaccination. Still, cities report the highest number of infections. Doctors treat this with any of the fever reducer tablets, surprisingly some even with unwanted antibiotics. This time the infection is mild, exactly like flu or viral fever treatable with home remedies. But the credit goes to the vaccination. It is a popular belief that it is because the vaccination infection remained mild. The mortality rate was less in the third wave because of the vaccination, the advocates of modern medicine claimed. Had more people died they would have said it was because all the people did not take the jabs.

The high test positivity rate of one in three kept hospital beds empty, medicine stocks decaying and personal protection kits gathering dust. The rate in the normal case would have created chaos as we saw last summer. The high positivity rate did not lead to an emergency. Many patients did not go to doctors but resorted to home remedies. At least in big cities, every person suffered the infection, thereby the virus covering the entire urban population. Omicron is less damaging than the Delta variant, thanks to the interpretation of genome sequencing. People are now out of fear. None is ready to spoil their life for the fear of Covid-19. All are concerned about their job.

Full lockdown or semi-lockdown, people are keen to attend their workplace. It is sensible not to declare a lockdown for people to defy as they run jobs. That has left our rulers with another alternative that is a night curfew! That has no meaning. That is the time all living beings except rare animals like foxes and robbers, sleep. Those who travel at night are emergency travellers.

An elaborate preparation for managing the third wave went in vain despite infection hitting almost everyone in the urban centres. There is a need for oxygen cylinders. The mass transit systems continued to roll. People travel in the mass transit system without scanning. A rail car carries 90 passengers. A train carries more than 1500. An aircraft carries 200 or 300 fliers. Thermal scanning and sanitisers have left their places. The day is not far, people will remove their already half-covered masks. Yet, there are lockdown victims like a saloon, gym, wellness and shopping mall, theatre etc. Some states like Karnataka reintroduced the RT PCR test mandatory for people entering from its neighbouring States. Nevertheless, the Central government dictates differently.

Contradictions never end. The two strict lockdowns hadn’t rendered any result. Neither did the lockdown stop migrant workers moving to their native place nor did the so-called farmers stop their sittings in the streets. Elections came and went like carnivals. The crowd size was never thin. Amidst the third wave, another election carnival is bracing politicians and their support base. The alarming number of infections is only a minuscule of the actual infection size. Omicron has reached everyone. The samovar has no more water to boil further.