Corona virus saga continues. Debates are going on all over the world whether the lock downs are necessary or are an encroachment upon freedom. Were the lock downs necessary? Looking at India, it looks meaningless where cases have risen without a slightest blip while in New Zealand and South Korea, lock down has done wonders. Whatever is the truth, but for now it looks like without a vaccine, which gives the big pharmaceuticals their share of trillions, the world would not be normal, which means continual destruction of people's lives.
There are many aspects of the virus which will be debated for years to come - the real sting of the virus, the response, the panic and the lock downs. The death rate, meanwhile, continues to fall slowly - if the data is to be believed.
CDC on 22nd May tweaked the narrative about transmission ability of the virus, toning it down with the word "may" here and there. This might change more, in the coming weeks, when more is known about the potency and mutability of the virus.
Will the life ever return to normal? Or will the risk of the virus engulf it fully and leave a different world? Life is a risk anyway. Going out and driving at 80 miles an hour among speeding cars is a huge risk, which claims its share of morbidity. And don't forget thousands of flights every year. Perhaps the world has become more fragile. Risk appetite has gone down. It has I believe, when I see kids riding a tricycle with protective gear or skating with knee and elbow guards. I, as a kid sometimes faced a hard, cricket ball without pads!
A picture that will haunt me for long is that of a child walking with a flattened plastic bottle tied beneath his foot as a makeshift slipper. Another one that will not leave the memory soon is a picture of the feet of a migrant family, with skin hardened and filled with crusts of mud.
Another picture came out yesterday - a flight attendant wearing a mask, a face shield and a protective suit. Paranoia at its highest.
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