Covid-19: Let’s Learn to Behave Responsibly!

It’s almost 15 months since we have been surreal. And, it became much worse in India with the disastrous second wave that left behind much agony and trauma—lack of beds in hospitals, lack of oxygen supply, lack of medicines, high financial strain on middle class families by way of mind-blowing hospitalisation charges, innumerable deaths, orphaned children and what not—among the victims’ families. And no one knows when we will get back to normal or even a new normal, for everything is fluid, nothing is certain, everyday something new is emerging challenging the wit of mankind. 

As the lockdowns were announced when the pandemic spread across the world, cardiologists feared that the people who are known to “eat too much, drink too much, exercise too little and fail to go for regular checkups” if confined to houses for a year or more with such behaviours which are the known drivers of cardiovascular diseases, would become more vulnerable for cardiovascular diseases and death in the days to come. Indeed, the risk of eating disorders across the age-groups skyrocketed during the pandemic. But there is of course, a way out: Cultivation of healthier lifestyle/habits can mitigate heart disease risks. Then the question is: how willing are we to practice it?

Then with the advent of the deadly second wave, doctors have diagnosed a rash of Mucormycosis, also known as ‘black fungus’, infection among recovering and recovered Covid-19 patients. Mucormycosis is a very rare infection. It is caused by exposure to mucor mould which is found in soil, plants, manure and decaying fruits and vegetables. Indeed, it is universal, found even in the nose and mucus of healthy people.

Doctors believe that it is the usage of steroids, a life-saving treatment for severe and critically ill Covid-19 patients, which might have triggered mucormycosis infection. No doubt steroids reduce inflammation in the lungs of covid-19 patients and may also stop some of the damages that can happen when the body’s immune system goes into overdrive to fight off coronavirus. But over-usage of steroids also reduces body’s immunity, besides pushing up blood sugar levels in both diabetics and non-diabetic covid-19 patients. And this drop in immunity is what is considered as triggering the black fungus infection.

People suffering from Black fungus infection typically experience stuffy and bleeding nose; swelling of and pain in the eye; drooping eyelids; and blurred vision and finally even loss of vision. Black patches may appear on skin around the nose. It affects even the brain and the lungs. It can be life-threatening in diabetic and severely immune-compromised persons such as cancer patients.

Doctors complain that most of the people infected by black fungus arrive late, mostly when they are losing their vision. And this forces doctors to surgically remove their eye to stop the infection from reaching the brain.

Then came the reports about white fungus infection. Doctors say that “fungus or any other infection is all around us; it is there in the environment. Indeed, we co-live with them. But when a man’s immune system becomes weak, they invade the body. White fungus infection can spread to any part of the body— skin, tongue, brain, digestive system, kidney—and the symptoms depend on which part of the body is infected. If the infection reaches digestive system, patient can face difficulty in eating and swallowing food; if it reaches head, one may experience headache, and nausea. However, the commonest symptoms are: white patches on skin, white tongue, diarrhoea, hypoxia even after recovering from Covid-19.

Now the latest is: Cytomegalovirus-related rectal bleeding is reported in five covid-19 recovered patients from a private hospital, Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, in Delhi. Doctors say that CMV is usually present in the body but developed into a disease after a person’s immunity is lowered by covid-19 infection. Now doctors advise that any person after recovering from covid-19, if experiences abdominal pain or blood in their stool must immediately go to a hospital.

To protect oneself from all these secondary infections—infections that become virulent once our immune system become weak—patients recovered from Covid-19 must eat healthy food to build one’s immunity. Importantly, we should shun junk food from the street.

In spite of such life-threatening developments, what is more painful to notice is: we have still not learnt how to behave in order to keep ourselves safe. We continue to behave more irresponsibly towards ourselves, our families and our fellow citizens. People merrily roam around with mask under their chin.

It’s not uncommon to see people move around even in closed spaces such as inbetween the rows of racks of a Supermarket with masks hanging under chin! The other day I saw a young man enquiring the store girl—bindas standing in close quarters—“Where is Suzi?” And that poor girl, perhaps, fearing for her safety, pulling herself a little away, answered, “there in the next rack”.   “Aren’t there ½ kg packets?” “No Sir, over”, replied she. And till all this was over, I had to simply wait at a distance for the man to give me way. Of course, that was not what bothered me—rather about that poor girl, don’t know, in a day, how many such visitors threaten her safety and god only knows how she manages to be safe.

Wait, there was yet another bizarre scene that I encountered at the vegetable racks. A young men in his track suit standing in front of Bhendi tray fished out his smart phone and enquiring, perhaps, with his wife, whether he should pick Bhendi or brinjal, mind you with the mask under chin… … and this goes on merrily for a while… all around the vegetable trays. He even sent a pic of some tray. Talking and moving around those trays merrily sprayed all the vegetable trays with his exhaled virus [?] aerosols. It was only after he left with tomato, I could move nearer to the rack to pick Bhendi and Brinjal from those very trays and if I am lucky, I may not carry virus home.

As I talk of such indifferent behaviour of buyers in shops, suddenly an incident that happened back in our flats came to mind. One day our watch man stopping the Swiggy delivery boy from going inside directed him to call the bidder to come and pick the pocket. At it the resident-buyer yelled at the watchman: “Why don’t you allow him to come to my flat? Where is Corona? Govt had freed everything. Everyone got vaccinated. Why worry corona now?”

Interestingly, this yelling raises a very pertinent question: What the covid-19 vaccines actually do? As per the present knowledge, vaccines do not prevent infections with the virus, they only protect people from getting dangerously sick due to its infection.

Vaccine efficacy refers to how well a vaccine works against the disease. For instance, if a Covid-19 vaccine is said to be of 74% efficacy, it only means: a vaccinated man has a 74% lower risk of developing the serious illness caused by the infection vis-à-vis a man who is not vaccinated. It is still not clear as to “the extent to which it keeps one from being infected and passing virus on to others”.

Over it, with the arrival of new variants—Alpha (first found in the UK), Beta (first identified in South Africa), Gama (discovered in Brazil), and Delta (identified in India), Delta plus—the very efficacy of these vaccines became a question mark. According to UK data, Delta variant, also known as B.1.617.2, has assumed the status of concern on two factors: it has about 40% higher transmission rate over alpha, which already had a 50% higher transmissibility than the original strain of the virus.

So, as Dr Anthony Fauci said, vaccine is only “an additional tool for fighting Covid-19, but we don’t have a tool to replace everything we do just yet”. It means, we cannot give off sanitisation, wearing a mask, maintaining social distance and avoiding mass gatherings, if we want to remain free from infection.

Let us therefore, own up the responsibility to remain safe by religiously practicing Covid-19 appropriate behaviour till things become clear and a settled norm returns to our lives. This shall automatically take care of the safety of our fellow beings too.

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