Faith in the Times of Pandemic V. Georgekutty, Karunagappally “I have no idea what's awaiting me, or what will happen when this all ends. For the moment I know this: there are sick people and they need curing” (Albert Camus, ‘The Plague’). On April 3, 2015, Bill Gates, philanthropist and co-founder of Microsoft Corporation, gave an eight minute speech at TED Talk in which he said, “When I was a kid, the disaster we worried about most was a nuclear war…” We then had big barrels down in our basement, filled with cans of food and water. When the nuclear attack came, we were supposed to go downstairs, hunker down, and eat out of that barrel. But today, the real threat comes not from missiles, but from microbes. “If anything kills over 10 million people in the next few decades, it's most likely to be a highly infectious virus rather than a war,” he said. While we have invested heavily in nuclear deterrents, we have actually invested very little in a system to stop an epidemic. Bill Gates was talking against the backdrop of the 2014 Ebola epidemic that had killed about 10,000 people. Ebola did not cause greater damage for more than one reason. One of it is that Ebola virus does not spread through the air. Another is that by the time you are contagious, you would be too sick to move around and spread the virus. Besides, Ebola didn't get into many urban areas. That was just good luck. But “You can have a virus where people feel well enough while they're infectious that they get on a plane or they go to a market.” It might make things a thousand times worse in comparison. Bill Gates was truly prophetic, so were several others. At the same time, some of the Christian preachers, who purportedly have a hotline to heaven and claim to be privy to all divine plans for humankind, had told their audience in 2019 that 2020 would be the year of unprecedented prosperity. ‘It is going to be the year of heavenly blessing. So, be ready to receive heavenly bounties in the coming year. Therefore, with our whole being, body and soul, let us shout praises to our Lord for his amazing grace.’ The preachers raised their hands over their heads and hollered ‘Hallelujah’; the frenzied audience smote the air with their palms and roared, ‘Hallelujah!’, ‘Hallelujah!’ It was a blatant lie as usual. On December 31, 2019, the World Health Organization (WHO) was formally notified about a cluster of cases of pneumonia in Wuhan, the sprawling capital of China’s Hubei province. Ten days later, six people were dead, 51 were severely ill and 12 were in a critical condition in Wuhan. Cases were also reported from Japan, South Korea and Thailand. The cause of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) that came to be called
COVID‐19 was identified as a novel coronavirus (SARS‐ CoV-2). The virus had probably jumped from animals to humans at a wet market in Wuhan. The rest is history – a history that is being rewritten constantly. Across the world, nations were too busy augmenting their arsenals with weapons of mass destruction to bother about speculation on a pathogen waiting on the wings. So, when COVID-19 started spreading, making millions sick and thousands dead, epidemiologists all over the globe stood shaking in their boots with hardly a clue about what to do to contain or combat this invisible monster. All assumptions on the behaviour of the virus have been proven wrong. All forecasts about the infections peaking and declining have turned out to be fallacious. Wonder drugs and magic cures have all fallen by the wayside. The world suddenly realized that all the economic, scientific and technological advances are powerless against this ‘crowned’ virus that measure about 120 nanometre in diameter. As panic spread, governments imposed lockdowns. Businesses pulled down their shutters; markets wore a deserted look; campuses fell quiet; vehicles went off the roads and railroads lay idle. The lockdowns had hardly any impact on viral spread. People continued to fall sick and die. But it ended up compounding the misery of many. The abrupt stalling of all economic activities impoverished populations. The poor, the aged, the sick, the migrants and the ethnic minorities were hit the hardest. Terms like Mask, disinfectant, sanitizer, physical distancing, personal hygiene, quarantine and work-fromhome suddenly acquired a prominence unknown in the past. The world suddenly shifted into a ‘new normal’. Social gatherings were banned; places of worship were closed down and the aged were banished from the outdoors. Family members got stuck it distant locations and remained separated. Almost all activities went online – shopping, banking, working, worshipping, medical aid and even funerals. The novel corona virus is an unknown player. Its behaviour remains unpredictable. The virus is back in New Zealand after the nation had remained free of infections for over a hundred days and celebrated its great ‘success’. It has also been reported that a 33-year-
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