Covid-19: allowing it to be something it wasn’t

Adisease is as strong and as weak as we allow it to be. We allowed Covid-19 to become something it originally was not.

We allowed it to take over our thoughts and cognition, a realm which the coronavirus never intended to enter. Yet we lowered our guard and surrendered our already vulnerable mental health to the Covid-19 pandemic.

How did our mental capabilities fall to a novel virus? The global media has, knowingly or unknowingly, served the purpose of a petri dish and bred the Covid-19 scare and stigma. Every news channel and website had a ticking time bomb on its screen: a live meter which counted the number of people dying or getting infected every day in every country. News was centred on those who were dead or were about to die, lockdowns and our sabotaged daily lives, future waves of Covid-19, and how our existence depended on the development of a vaccine and lack of hospital beds, ventilators, medicines and other supplies. There was no check on this arousal of public fear and alarm which allowed the virus to cast its net wider and wider.

While treating patients we follow: “first, do no harm (primum non nocere)”. Perhaps it is time the field of journalism tagged along.

Soon the misery of Covid-19 patients doubled as they had to fight a mental battle along with the physical invasion of the coronavirus. The stigma of the disease deeply infiltrated our minds and hearts. People started to suppress their urge to cough in public spacings. The diagnosis of Covid-19 started to be feared as a social death sentence.

We allowed Covid-19 to spread. Private hospitals closed their doors to the majority of coronavirus patients, making them feel like a cursed segment of society. These patients then visited public hospitals and, understandably, hid symptoms which could associate them with the virus. As a result, they risked their own lives and the lives of hundreds who shared with them the same air.

I saw many similar cases in the public hospital where I worked. Patients, gasping for air and carrying investigations done from private hospitals showing high suspicion of Covid-19, refused to accept any linkage with the virus.

In the early days of the pandemic, we heard news of our countrymen travelling to Pakistan after hiding their symptoms and lying about their travel history far too many times. Only we are to blame for letting this virus become something it originally was not.

Not to mention how we made our fight with the pandemic harder by using Covid-19 as a business opportunity. A simple surgical mask which was less than $4 was sold in the black market for as low as $10 and as high as $25. As soon as news started spreading about hydroxychloroquine being a potential prophylaxis against Covid-19, the medicine disappeared from the market only to be sold later at a cost 10 times its original price.

How could we fight a disease which was understood very little, had no treatment or vaccine and was as deadly as it was contagious? There was no right or wrong way to fight this pandemic. There was no winner or loser in this fight against the virus. But there certainly were some limitations and codes of conduct which we failed to abide by. Owing to our dark habits and attitude towards the pandemic, we dug a grave far deeper than it was supposed to be.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 18^th, 2020.

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