What caused it?
The recent COVID-19 outbreak saw the world entering into quarantine as various governments announced lockdowns for their countries. This happened as the devastating novel coronavirus wreaked havoc in China, with Hubei (in Wuhan) as the epicentre . People then witnessed it spreading its deadly clutches over the entire world, quickly and steadily, engulfing almost every country. Even the most powerful countries, such as the U.S.A., were not exempted from its after-effects. With many studies and clinical trials(around 559 interventional studies) going on to find a cure to the diseases, not yielding much, the governments thought it best, in the goodwill of their citizens, to ask them to quarantine themselves in their own homes.
Yes, this does sound like home arrest as any attempt to breach the quarantine would result in action by the police. Governments, having taken note of the fact that the present health care systems were insufficient to deal with an outbreak of this extent, quarantine was deemed to be the best and possibly the only way out to break the vicious cycle of the coronavirus spread. The goal of the quarantine/lockdown was to ensure that people maintained some distance from one another (social-distancing) and practised hygienic measures.
A different perspective to the Quarantine
The quarantine can be visualized as a double-edged sword- on one hand, it will help stop the spread of the deadly coronavirus and on the other hand, it will give people the time they had always wanted in their life, time to spend with their family. This quarantine could teach people that “Being alone has a power that we should learn to handle”. This quarantine should instil in the people, a sense of belief that we are never alone, we might feel lonely at times, but we always have the company of ourselves with ourselves, all the time. People should also realize that they are getting a ‘once in a lifetime opportunity’ of a chance to save others by doing exactly nothing i.e. by being at home. This quarantine should make people spend some quality time with their near and dear ones. This quarantine should make people meditate so as to better connect with themselves and the supreme being.
The quarantine should make people work on themselves; as the saying goes, “The best project you will ever work on is you”. This time could be utilized for working out, those who had to have jobs could work from home, those who hadn’t could work on some projects of their own, students could join online classes and whatnot. There are always innumerable possibilities about what we can do with something such that it’s always better than nothing. However, as expected, almost everyone did confine themselves in the easing safety of their home but simultaneously they also became prisoners to technology in the worst possible way. All I want the readers to do is to take home the idea that we are never alone and always have our own company, our own subconscious mind to connect to, our own subconscious mind to talk to. Dr. Joseph Murphy, in his book ‘The Power of your subconscious mind’ has highlighted the same fact. So, we need not be tied to the screens all day, all night, staring at them thinking they might help get rid of the boredom. Instead, they just aid in increasing the boredom. One must take care that he does not inundate his mind with just the web series, shows, movies, or games. Instead, one must read some books or do some productive work that feeds the mind- “Investing in your mind is the best investment you can make in your entire life”. Don’t fall prey to the trap of violent games such as PUBG and COD, playing them for long times could dry up your eyes and weaken the eyesight . They could also prove to be detrimental to your spine.
Why should you not break it?
If during the entire quarantine, you find yourself lonely enough to even think of wandering outside for no good reason, maybe to catch up with a friend of yours, I want you to ponder over for once that the medical staff and the police personnel, those on the frontline in the battle against Covid-19, are not getting to meet their friends or acquaintances or even family for days straight. They are striving day and night, risking their own life, while trying to save ours. Do we not owe them at least this, people? To remain in the confinement of our homes and murder our ideas of going out on holidays with family, until the pandemic is won over with. To not spread fake news and rumours in times when the whole world is itself perplexed with what’s going on.
I suppose this is the least we could do to show solidarity with them, to show that we stand with them in each of their steps against the vicious corona enemy.
Doctors: The saviours
In times such as these, we must also realize that nature has given doctors the exclusive responsibility to dedicate everything in their power to save humanity. And doctors have quite much lived to the expectations of mother nature and the people as well. No doubt they need to be applauded. No doubt, we as humans can’t repay them. If they are not God, they are at least semi-divine for being the people’s saviour .
So, we must give them the respect that is their due. The quarantine, having been proposed by the governments but necessitated by the doctors, so we must respect this advice of theirs’s in the name of divinity at least. Doctors are the swords, doctors are the shields, doctors are our every hope in this battle, which if lost has the potential to wipe out much of the human race. This battle needs to be won at all costs and let us all put in our hopes and trust in our doctors that they will emerge victoriously. In order for that to happen, we’ll have to make the quarantine and the lockdown a success.
So, STAY HOME! STAY SAFE!
