UNEXPECTED TIMES 2020-21.....CORONA

 

UNEXPECTED TIMES 2020-21.......CORONA

Part 1

Earlier ‘Corona’ word used to be relaxing, comfort giving, refreshing. I remember since childhood Footwear used to be 2 brands....BATA & CORONA. Corona footwear for comfort was the tag line. Then the hospitality industry & a brewery introduced us to a refreshing beverage.....Corona Beer, served chilled. The memories are still strong. In this age of digitalization before 2020 if one Googled “Corona” the first 5 used to be Corona Footwear & Corona Beer. The times have changed & how?

Now the only word with C that comes to mind is Corona & that’s a Big Change. The earlier words Change – Carrot – Cat have taken a backseat too.

As early as 2019 this virus Corona, now known as Covid19 made its presence felt in China but not known to the world. The infected people travelled all over the world and by 2020 February, the world was beginning to feel the sting of this Coronavirus. New virus strain, no medicine for it and spreading thru human’s interaction, the disease spread and a “Covid19 Pandemic” era began. No one had a clue how to control and how long this will last. The WHO and doctors, scientists struggled to make the right serum.

The bigger & developed countries were the first to affected...US, UK, Spain, France, Germany, Brazil not counting China which was already worst affected. India was watching and the government had started to monitor the Covid19 effects & ways to manage its entry in India. It happened with one traveller +ve Covid19 landing in India somewhere in February followed by the Tabligis episode as informed by news media began the arrival of Covid19 in India. The government thru the media was informing of updates but the seriousness never sunk in as WE believed our immunity is better than the world because we eat street unhygienic junk food, use spices and cook all our food. This proved to be a myth as India was slowly getting affected, a large population of 130 crores spread length & breadth of the country with a blind-spot for finding /identifying the patient. Laboratory facilities for checking the strain were limited to under 2 digit in India, Hospitals not equipped, medical facilities in rural India still not developed to tackle the Pandemic.

The country’s prime minister made an appeal on 20^th March2020 to the people to follow “Janta Curfew” so that the Cororna can be controlled thru less public interaction. People responded & it was success. This done, the government announced complete Lockdown in India from 24^th March for 21 days to14th April’20. The patient number was around 500. This was phase 1. Everything shutdown, initially all enjoyed the forced holiday and family bonding unaware of the danger lurking around. The rate of spread did decrease but the authorities to control the spread totally extended the lockdown, 2^nd phase 15^th April to 3^rd May’20 (19days) followed by Phase 3 & 4 ending on 31^st May’20.

During this lockdown to keep the spirits high (no, not those spirits...shops were shut) the Prime Minister announced Thali Bajao Day, Clapping for Frontline Covid warriors, Diya Jalo Night and all these were well responded. But reality was different from this momentarily motivation.