Washing hands is enough? Well, think again!

It's been 7 months since the coronavirus outbreak was discovered in Wuhan, China and it has been almost 4 months since India has declared lockdown in various stages and is still declared in some states even now. There might be other countries following the same or different principles, there are countries that followed their unique strategies and have emerged successful in eradicating the virus from their country and what is surprising is that these countries are the ones that no one expected would be successful in eradicating the virus. But what I wanted to focus on in this article is at first, on a question: are we doing what we are supposed to do for eliminating coronavirus?

One thing that I would like to let everyone know in the beginning is that I might be focusing on the case of India most of the time because I have no solid information of what is going on in the other countries, except what I see on the news which is another way of saying I know only made up stuff. When the lockdown was initiated in March, people, even though weren't that much bothered in the beginning, gradually started to cooperate and understood the seriousness of the issue. This helped bring down the active number of cases drastically and even resulted in a period where no new active cases were recorded during the first week of May.

Of course, the current situation is much different from what is mentioned above with people from various countries and states arriving thereby increasing the number of active cases again. The government and the health department is doing its very best to handle the situation effectively. But there are some things that I would like to point out. Wearing masks have become a fashion rather than a precaution. Of course, that wouldn't have mattered if the fashion sense had been kept over the nose and mouth rather than under it. In some districts, people say, especially shopkeepers, that when sanitizers are handed over to customers to disinfect their hands before entering the shop, they show a sarcastic expression. Even after repeated warnings by the government to not cram up public transport especially buses, people still ignore it and the bus owners and operators display an even more irresponsible attitude. What comes above making money isn't it?

Then comes the part where people conduct marriages, birthday celebrations, prayer meetings and so on. All these are acceptable, provided that you adhere to the conditions laid down by the government. Unfortunately, that part is the one that people somehow miss the most. These are not speculations. These are facts that I came to know through my relatives and friends from different districts in Kerala which is the state in which I reside. There has been an instance where a person in my cousin's neighbourhood entered their house casually without a mask just to have a small-talk.

I can go on and on and on but that's not the point. The point is people still haven't taken this pandemic seriously. Earlier, the state of Kerala even though not as widespread as the coronavirus, was under attack by the Nipah virus. Even though it was contained effectively by the government, it was much more deadly. People cooperated much more ad took the issue seriously back then even though it was mostly restricted to a few districts. There's also another perception that a vaccine has already been developed for the coronavirus. If you ask me, this is the third time I have heard that a vaccine is developed or being developed and it showed positive results in curing a patient as well. That's good news but does it mean that you have to stop following the precautions laid down by the government. Or since a vaccine is underway, is it alright if you test positive for coronavirus infection?

Right from the beginning, there are only three things that proved effective against coronavirus: lockdown, quarantine and social distancing. This can be seen from the results shown by Kerala till the mid of May. Now, I am not trying to say that we have to follow these three measures during our entire life but lets at least follow them until the number of positive cases(infected) reduces and things turn out to be stable. We might have to go out to buy our necessities and that's perfectly alright but avoid any unwanted visits or activities that include groups of people. To the people who arrived from abroad, I know that you might want to meet a lot of relatives and friends and they might want to meet you too which is quite natural. All you have to do is postpone that visit. It's not like you can't visit or talk to them at all. Whatsapp voice or video, BOTIM, etc are mostly the apps through which you probably have contacted them when you were abroad. Just continue doing that for a little longer that's all. For all the teenagers like me out there, I know that online shopping sites have been attracting all of us through some crazy discounts that can be really tempting. Just shut your eyes or block those sites if you have to because those items are mostly shipped from northern states. Well, that says enough, doesn't it?

To conclude, yes, some of you might be thinking that these are probably things that you have already heard a million times. Well, if you have heard them a million times, then start doing them from now on at least. For those of you who have been taking the precautions wisely, good job! On an ending note, I just wanted to say that it's up to you to decide whether you need to be on the safe side or not. If you don't care about being safe, at least don't put other peoples' lives in jeopardy too.