In this modern-day and age, perhaps the world has never been as stagnant as it is today, in the face of an unprecedented COVID-19 novel Coronavirus pandemic which has claimed over 13062 lives worldwide. Italy recorded a staggering 793 death toll in the past 24 hours, a record high, a figure which even China’s daily statistics at peak couldn’t come close to.
This pretty much tells us how the virus strain is attacking mankind as a whole, irrespective of borders, nationalities, cultures and religion. Although this is common sense, and I would be making a fool of myself stating this indisputable fact, it must be popularized nevertheless. For what we are facing as a supplement to this pandemic is the craziness of the human race, and some elements in it working tirelessly to make us go extinct.
What we are fighting along with Coronavirus is the recklessness of some humans. Let’s talk about India first.
Kanika Kapoor serves as an example of how one should not behave in times of a pandemic. The woman threw a lavish party attended by top-notch guests, and herself attended multiple other parties coming in contact with close to 400 people. This, after she landed from London and hid her travel history and somehow dodged due procedure at the airport. She has now tested positive for the virus.
Kanika’s behaviour is a needle in a haystack, a haystack India neither has the time, nor the wherewithal to examine. With the rise of cases in India to close to 323 as of now, the number of patients fleeing quarantine and isolation centres is also on the rise. Such people pose a magnanimous threat to public health in India, and are no less than mass-murderers out on a mission to wipe out a population of 1.3 billion people, even if unconsciously so.
Another article in TFIPOST had earlier described how absconders from quarantine pose a grave threat to Indians. For instance, a Kerala man returning from Saudi Arabia was quarantined. He left his home, met with an accident and rushed to a hospital. Doctors and surgery staff realised he is afflicted with the Coronavirus symptoms and now the entire surgery system is at risk of contracting the Wuhan virus. In Odisha, an Irish man suspected of being infected with Coronavirus and sent to the isolation ward of a government hospital in Cuttack had absconded recently. More recently, a US couple having symptoms of Coronavirus fled from the Alappuzha Medical College. Later, they were traced at the Kochi International Airport and were put under isolation.
Sadly, these are not the only cases to worry about. Over 300 suspected individuals are absconding, and off-the-radar from Punjab. Such people may just trigger community transmission in India, which we simply cannot control. Much like the ‘Patient 31’ in South Korea who did not follow quarantine, and triggered around 80% of the cases detected in the country.
While in India the worry is regarding people fleeing isolation centres out of fear, in other nations, people are behaving like absolute nutcases, out on a quest to wage an individual war against the deadly virus. A layman would refer to such fools as ‘psychos’, which the other nations seem to have in abundance.
NBA player Rudy Gobert became the first to be tested positive for Coronavirus from among NBA players, following which, the league announced suspension of the upcoming season. His actions, however, have alarmed people across the world.
On March 10th, the player addressed a press briefing. While he was done and was walking away, the man suddenly turned back and proceeded to touch the microphones and recorders of every journalist present. He was later tested positive for Coronavirus. What do we term such behaviour as? I’d say, at the very least, it is homicidal. Having tested positive, he hence endangered the lives of all reporters, and the people they further came in contact with owing to his petty stunt.
Meanwhile, In China, people have found a rather worrying fondness of spitting on elevator buttons and spreading the virus as though it is the gospel.
Two Chinese men were caught on camera spitting phlegm at lift buttons at a residential complex in the eastern city Jinan. CCTV footage shows two residents entering the lift separately before spitting at the control board within the same week. Another CCTV footage shows an elderly man in northern China deliberately applied his saliva onto the buttons of an elevator. The video, shot in the city of Datong in Shanxi Province on February 7, showed the man standing at the lift entrance, spitting onto his hand and then rubbing his hand onto the buttons.
The Chinese seem to have another newly-discovered hobby, apart from spitting on elevator buttons, and of course, endangering mankind as a whole. This hobby involves applying one’s saliva on the handrails of trains and subways. A viral video shows the man removing his face mask before bringing his hand to his mouth and licking it on the MTR train. He then rubs his finger against the red pole. Another man in Belgium, in all likelihood under the influence of alcohol, did the same. The man can be seen removing his mask before bringing his hand to his mouth and licking it. He then brings his right hand up to the vertical rail and grips it, before rubbing it along the bar.
Back in the United States, a woman in Wisconsin staged a ‘protest’ against the Chinese virus, and licked the door handle of a freezer at a grocery store. The manager immediately cleaned the door handle and called the police to check on the woman. The woman told police she licked the door handle to “protest” against the virus.
In Iran, people from the Muslim community were somehow talked into licking and kissing Shi’ite shrines, claiming that since these are places of healing, they cannot contract the virus. By doing so while taking a video of himself, a man encouraged all Muslims to do the same. The man was later arrested by authorities. Interestingly, the cleric who had called for such behaviour has died of the Chinese virus.
The above-mentioned cases are all cues for large scale community transmission to occur unabated. As much as these people would want the entire world to suffer, we cannot extend them with the said courtesy. Sadists that they are, they must be treated as mentally unstable individuals, apart from isolating them for Coronavirus. And this is not even a joke. In all likelihood, many of these people must be mentally ill, and in urgent need of help. For those who are not, they must be criminally charged for creating havoc in society and having homicidal tendencies. Whether it be the quarantine absconders in India, or the spitters of China, they must be punished for endangering multiple lives and aiding the proliferation of Chinese virus.
This is yet another reason why every Indian, and every global citizen must self-isolate and put themselves under voluntary lockdown, even if there are no symptoms of the disease that they might have. Once they step foot out of their homes, they are in unchartered territory, where nobody knows how the virus can find its way into the human body. Social distancing becomes imperative in the face of such cases which have been mentioned above. Stay home, stay safe!