Dr Yousuf Ali Al mulla
We are still in our cosmic captives of this strange visitor in all diaries. Perhaps the virus whispering to itself from the beginning, saying I came to stay! No vaccine or treatment yet, nothing but the possibilities for one another and the small or big questions. After all previous weeks, is life starting to regain its momentum at permissible time and to walk around?
Unprecedented actions have created a kind of fear and anxiety in the hearts of individuals and citizens (young and old); fear of this COVID-19 pandemic, fear of death and fear of lack of abundance of consumables. If we go back, we realize that man believed that he extended his control over nature, but suddenly it got away from the palm of his hands made him surprise but even in shock!
Humans are now in their homes and nature continues in life. Man felt a new fear that differs from his previous fear in the face of wars, famines and natural disasters .On other hand, it might be a fortunate incident that the cars in the streets and steamers in the seas and oceans are only a little bit and the engines of the big factories are silent, so pollution rates decreased and the Ozone hole over the Arctic began to finally meld its ends, apparently in preparation for healing?
What a sarcasm, death here means life there and the virus that inhabits the lung of human being and kills him, offers nature its eternal life to be renewed and revived.
However, there are still months to go for possible vaccine and that’s could be long time to wait and the virus may cause a lot of damage before it is contained. Nevertheless, we might reach herd immunity (indirect protection from infectious disease that occurs when large percentage of population has become immune to an infection, whether though vaccine or previous infection) slowly and keep cases low enough to avoid overburdening healthcare systems.
I think still we need a huge dose of optimism, looking that some commercial activities and movement in most of the countries have returned to the streets and the features of gradual total return are close, desiring and crave to the forms of life that we knew.
With such pandemic we recognized lately, that the world became not a small village, but rather many villages separated or islands, one can hardly see the other. The world is not what is before coronavirus and not what is in the time of this virus and it will never be after such pandemic. Surprisingly, COVID-19 pandemic has proven that preparing for upcoming diseases is no longer a luxury or a side issue. And here in this century, protection, immunization, preserving and improving human health and treating them has become more important than weapons that protect borders!
At the end, new questions will be raised tomorrow, although they raised previously, in front of the politicians, economists, scientists and in front of man in general, asking about fear, but open to hope!
The writer is a physician, medical innovator and educator.
