Lockdown: Sanity or Safety First?

HEY there! This is my first blog for this site. If you are asking, I am very excited and have been planning for this all week. So let's get going...

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As we all know and have become accustomed to by now (hopefully), the world has been plunged into oblivion by the Novel Coronavirus or the COVID-19. Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses that cause illness ranging from the common cold to more severe diseases such as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome.

As the World Health Organization claims, 2019-nCoV is a new strain that has not been previously identified in humans and causes COVID19/coronavirus disease.

All available evidence for COVID-19 suggests that SARS-CoV-2 has a zoonotic source. As there is usually limited close contact between humans and bats, it is more likely that transmission of the virus to humans happened through another animal species, one that is more likely to be handled by humans.

This is the proposed structure of the COVID-19 VIRUS

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The COVID-19 is not something to joke about. Even if you have not gotten it yet, the number of people contracting the disease is increasing in almost every single state. But whereas China, which is the source of the first case and therefore the source of the virus, is having almost no cases every single day and more and more people in China are recovering. The worst-hit countries till date are the United States of America, Brazil, and India. The United States as we all know is the worst of all. There are almost 65,000+ new cases every single day. The second is Brazil which many of us may not know about. The case rate per day is a bit lower, at about 25,000 cases but that is not quite less. And lastly, India. India is my home country so yeah, you can understand. India may be 3RD on the list but it is one of the fastest rising ones. It has nearly 40,000+ cases every single day (and that is saying something). The death rate is also very high. But it is mostly due to the negligence and ill-mannered behavior of the Indian citizens.

The situation in India as you read the blog. The people are not even wearing masks, leave alone the social distancing.

As per an MIT Study, by February 2021, India is suspected to be worst hit by COVID-19. It will have nearly 487,000 cases a day with United States bagging the second place with 97,000 cases a day.

Of course, this can also be an exaggeration or can be proven to be false, so don't panic yet. There was also another study in the earlier stages of COVID which had concluded that India will have more than 100,000,000 cases by October or September (I can't exactly remember) and we all know how that turned out. In fact, the whole world is actually shocked by how the cases in India are increasing at a rather low rate compared to the rest of the world and their population is not a small amount!

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Anyway, enough of the depressing facts about how the world is dying. We would not want that to be one of our last thoughts, right? So now, I am sure that almost all of us are now reading this blog from the comfort of our homes. This is due to the lockdown imposed on us as a precautionary measure against the virus. Well, you might say, if the lockdown is required, how come is it so boring to stay at home? Now that is a very obvious question with a very obvious answer.

Anything which is good or necessary, also always has some drawbacks...

Usually, when we have school or work, we neglect our homes and barely find enough time to spend with our families. In those times, we would dream of being at home, sipping coffee and watching TV. But now that we have the whole day to ourselves and all we can do is watch TV and drink several cups of coffee, we actually want to go out and would prefer to go to school or office. I recently had a chat with one of my classmates, and she very wisely quoted a very famous quote which we often neglect the meaning of.

The grass is always greener on the other side.

Now, I will be listing out the few PROS and CONS of the lockdown which is involuntarily invading into our joyous lives.

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There are few notable PROS for imposing lockdown on us. The COVID-19 virus is airborne which means that it can be spread easily by the air or droplet infection (which basically means by sneezing or coughing). Now that is a dangerous way of spreading. Air is all around us and we can't live without breathing and when we breather, there is a risk of the particles being suspended in the air which can then enter into our bodies and infect us. And that brings me to another drawback, wearing masks. If we wear a mask, we cannot breathe freely, and that particularly affects people with asthma or underlying respiratory issues. There are even cases where some people have even collapsed due to lung burst and shortage of breath. That is however a part of the CONS.

The man from Wuhan who collapsed while running for miles with mask on.

In addition, due to the lockdown, we are interacting less than usual with our friends. That is bad and also good. It is good as we don't even know who has the virus as the symptoms are only visible after 14 days after the person contracts it. It is so difficult to know that even the person themselves don't know if they have contracted the virus or not. Some people can also be carriers, which means that they will have contracted the virus but there will be no visible symptoms. So it is much better to not meet people at all instead of choosing who to meet. This all prevents the community spread of the disease. There will be less contact with the people thus a lower chance of the number of cases rising. That is all for the PROS, and now comes the CONS (my favorite part of any debate or argument).

For the CONS of lockdown, I think most of us can relate to on a personal level. Due to the lockdown, most of the shops and malls and even movie theaters are all closed. We cannot even go out of our houses to take a walk in the park or go cycling in some of the countries. As a result, we cannot go and enjoy or favorite food, watch any new movies, as even the actors and actresses are on lockdown so new films cannot be filmed, or even go shopping. All we can do is stay at d home either watch TV, Netflix or play games. Now tell me, HOW LONG CAN ANY PERSON DO THE SAME THING EVERY DAY? I personally have become so bored that I have started studying, which I never usually do unless there is an exam or a test coming up, and also taken up PAINTING. Can you imagine how bored I am? I have never managed to get any good grades in ART ever! And now I myself am sitting down and painting and even writing this blog to pass my time as my mom would ground me if I watched even a single second more of Netflix. I also wanted to go to my favorite Indian restaurant which is Machan's kitchen, and it is still open by the way, but you know what my parents said? They called me desperate! And then they also asked me to name one other person who was going out. And coincidentally, that same day, my friend went out to a Japanese Restaurant and I was elated. But when I went and told my mom, she told me to name an Indian who went out. How does that even make sense? But, and read this point very carefully, when we went out yesterday to do grocery shopping, we saw loads of Indian teenagers eating Subway. So I showed my mom, and she said to not compare with them as they are much older than me. SO THEN, I FINALLY REALIZED THEIR TRICK AND DECIDED TO GIVE UP AND DIE OF BOREDOM. Just kidding about the last 4 words.

Anyway, what can we conclude from this? One thing I have realized is to never fall for what your parents say or tell you as 90% of the time, it will just be a coax to stop annoying them. But, back to the topic, I think that even though there are many more CONS than PROs, the PROS still outweigh the CONS. And why is that you may ask? It is because the PROS has more value. I may be sounding like my parents but don't mind me. I think so because even though the lockdown is making our lives plain and boring, it is still better than contracting the virus, and spending the last few days of your life in a hospital bed with no one, not even your family, beside you. We cannot change the government's decision, but we can always accept it instead of always complaining and sulking. I would recommend you to take up blogging if you are actually still not finding any useful way to pass your time. But still, I think we should keep our hopes up, as there are chances of a new vaccine being discovered soon and then when the lockdown is lifted and we can get back to our normal lives, I can bet that most of us would then be wishing to be back at home instead of at work or school. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to spend time with your family and has all the fun you want at home, and this will also be an interesting story to tell to our grandchildren if we live and the world is not finished by then. And this time I am not kidding.

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Now, we have reached the end of my first blog and I hope you enjoyed it. I will be writing more like this one so keep your eyes out for more. And if you actually managed to read till the end, you can like the blog if you did really like it, and also don't forget to tell me what topic you want me to write about next time. Until then, farewell my friend. To Infinity and Beyond.

“The secret of getting ahead is getting started.” – Mark Twain.