My COVID Views

It has become the planet's most deadly disease and has claimed 1,842,455 lives and affected over 85,083,468 people.

The speed at which the disease moves can break entire families and plays an active role in shaping not just our political landscape, but also the way we humans have existed since the dawn of our evolution.

Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is an infectious disease caused by a newly discovered coronavirus. The virus that causes COVID-19 is mainly transmitted through droplets generated when an infected person coughs, sneezes, or exhales. These droplets are too heavy to hang in the air, and quickly fall on floors or surfaces.

Each day, humans learn a little more about this invisible army and we have come to realize that this virus is not one we can simply eradicate as we have done with other diseases. COVID-19 (C19) is an evolutionary virus and its mutation in recent days shows that the virus is adept at building its resilience to ensure its survival.

By mutating, C19 has developed the ability to quickly spread from host to host in less time then its original form and the mutated variant has shown the current vaccines developed to combat it are only 75% effective. For people who are old, obese or sickly, the effectiveness of the vaccine reduces further.

Life as we know it has changed drastically for the human race when C19 surfaced at the end of 2019. Yet, 2021 has brought about the opportunity to reflect and review 2020. As a species, what have we done to our planet during our time here and is C19 going to be our Achilles heel?

Mother Nature has built in controls for everything on this planet. When one species grows too large in numbers and affects everything around it, Nature will step in and control the population levels. Humans have long tried to replicate this process. We have killed life on this planet indiscriminately for food and for sport without any regard for the consequences. We have single handedly caused the extinction of species and destroyed entire continents of forests to feed our needs. We have caused damages to the environment which are so severe that the very weather patterns early humans experienced are no more and each major weather occurrence results in further destruction to a planet which is already hanging on the edge of oblivion. 

This is not a fight for survival. It is sheer greed. We have tried to control Nature and take over the role of natural order. And we have failed. Miserably.

So, is C19 really the work of Nature? Perhaps as a species we have finally outgrown our planet and the deaths of 1 million people is really Natures way of stepping in and taking control. If it is, we certainly are deserving of this backlash from the planet we live on and have done everything to destroy.

While sympathies are with the families of those who have lost their loved ones, it is apparent that as a species, we need to make drastic changes to the way we treat our planet and the way we gorge on natural resources without any thought for other organisms we share this planet with. Change is needed and we need to reduce our leeching of natural resources and stop trying to replace Mother Nature.

We need to wake up and realize this disease will be our controlling mechanism because as a species, we have become too large and out of control. As someone who thinks a lot about things, I suspect C19 will continue to wreak havoc throughout the world until the human population drops to a more acceptable and tolerable level.

The result of C19 has also had a marked effect on our environment. With factories forced to close and vehicles no longer running as people work from home, the environment has finally had a chance to do something it hasn't been able to do for a few centuries: Breathe.

Countries such as China and India where particle levels are so toxic that they can cause cancer if inhaled frequently are seeing a massive change in the smoke particle levels. Factories are no longer spewing their poisonous waste fumes into the environment and humans have realized the world offers a lot more things apart from Facebook on their mobiles and started exercising a lot more.

It is as if Mother Nature has put together the most ingenious plan of reducing our numbers on this planet and getting other benefits out of the deal at the same time.

As a species, we need to wake up and realize our planet is no longer speaking to us. It is shouting. At the top of its voice and we need to listen and act accordingly.

“These pains you feel are messengers. Listen to them.” - Rumi, The Essential Rumi