Coronavirus: When fear and paranoia ruled

Coronavirus is at the global centre-stage and today is one of the most commonly used words worldwide. The volumes of information and misinformation on it have caused doubts and fears among the public.

Facts and fears

Coronavirus is highly contagious. It can enter the human body only through the mucosa, the membrane lining the inside of the nose, mouth and eyes. It cannot enter through the skin of the hands, etc. Coronavirus is contained in tiny droplets when an infected person sneezes, coughs or speaks loudly. If these droplets are inhaled by another person before they fall to the ground or onto door handles, etc., they enter the body through the mucosa of the nose and infect him. Hence the need for all to wear masks – an infected wearer’s mask prevents spread of infected droplets and an uninfected person’s mask prevents their inhalation. Droplets can remain on, say, a door handle for a short time. If such a surface is touched by hand, Coronavirus can get transferred to the skin of the hand/fingers, where it will be harmless, unless the hand/fingers touches the edges or inside of nose, mouth or eyes which have mucosa. All this is equally true of the common cold virus.

Most Coronavirus-infected persons develop mild-to-moderate symptoms and recover without hospitalisation. Many remain asymptomatic. Thus, Coronavirus is not a big killer of humans. There are far bigger killers of humans, as shown by WHO and IHME (Washington). Neglecting those larger causes of deaths and focusing on Corona/COVID-19, fails the test of proportionality.

In the absence of a cure for Covid-19 patients, or a vaccine for populations, the threat of Covid spread necessitated imposing physical distancing between people by lockdown. It was accompanied by government-initiated advice, instructions and orders to create awareness about Coronavirus and Covid. Constant media repetition of precautions to be taken has resulted in many people getting paranoid about touching anything, carrying hand-sanitizer bottles around with them, and using them or washing hands dozens of times every day. All this has created fear about contracting COVID almost amounting to paranoia, although only doctors and health workers on duty need to take such precautions. Unfortunately, governments were initially quite oblivious or uncaring of the fact that these measures are unaffordable, impractical and impossible for the vast majority rural and urban poor who live and work in congested places and/or have no easy access even to drinking water.

The four-hour-notice lockdown severely impacted the lives and livelihoods of hundreds of millions of rural and urban Indians. It caused panic-purchase of supplies for subsistence. It resulted in unexpected, spontaneous exodus of millions of workers out of urban areas who, together with many more millions of urban and rural poor, were more fearful of hunger and starvation, than about Corona-related disease and death. Fear ruled.

Migrant workers, urban slum dwellers, rural landless, etc. are undergoing the psychological trauma of uncertainty regarding the immediate future for themselves and families. This is accentuated by the physical trauma of hunger and exhaustion, and fear of experiencing demeaning and insulting police violence. Fear, again.

The COVID fear has had social repercussions. People of some Bihar villages have refused entry to their own returning migrants, fearing that they bring COVID. Nurses living in paying guest accommodation and working in a hospital in Bengaluru, were forced to vacate by the owner, because he feared infection.

Majority immunity

It is certain that Coronavirus is here to stay, and we will learn to live with it like earlier generations have been living with so many other viruses and bacteria.

Experts say that in coming months and years, the population majority will get infected by Coronavirus, and develop immunity to it, helped by an immunisation (vaccination) programme, i.e., COVID incidence among the population will be limited by “herd immunity”. In the meantime, COVID cure and vaccine will be developed. People therefore have little to fear if normal precautions are observed just as we do for common cold, and can resume work in accordance with governments’ regulations and directions.

Disease, cure and fear

Humans have begun to “cure” diseases ever since societies neglected the wisdom that the body itself does the “curing”, and the medicine-doctor combination only assists the natural curative/healing process. (Ayurveda recognises this). People have always searched for means to reduce or eliminate pain. Over millennia, this has extended to avoiding pain and prolonging life. Implicitly, the fear of death as an “unknown” exists in most societies.

Today’s healthcare sector manages illness/disease or life-threatening trauma, and has little time for health and healthy living. Notwithstanding this approach to “health”, the present state of the public healthcare sector can only be rued. Multi-specialty corporate hospitals, linked with insurance, pharmaceutical, and other industries, are prohibitively expensive. Today, we fear contracting disease by going to a public hospital, and fear expensive treatment in a corporate hospital leading to economic ruin. Yet again, fear.

Among humans, only societies which we label “primitive” understand death as an event in life. Even people who understand the inevitability of death, either fear death as an unknown, or without fearing death, fear the pain and suffering that can precede death. Either way, it’s about fear.

Looking ahead

Overcoming Corona-fear begins with acceptance that populations will develop herd immunity to Coronavirus and co-exist with it, as with other viruses and bacteria. Of course, available technology can minimise suffering, enhance cures and prevent Coronavirus spread, but should not divert attention and effort from other issues affecting social health.

A healthy society in which “the mind is without fear” would link people-centric economics with social justice, and peace and harmony within and between societies, and all life on Earth. Inevitable disease and death would not be feared, but also not accepted when it is a result of injustice, inequality or malafides.

Building a healthy society may appear far-fetched, but it is doable, even if time is running out and there is worldwide absence of requisite leadership.

(The writer focuses on development and strategic issues, using cross-discipline study and systems thinking)