Precautions to be taken to ensure that no new virus may bring the entire mankind to the edge of extinction
Covid-19 has opened our eyes to the fact that even things so small in size that may measure hardly 60 to 150 nm across may also ruin our life.
Take the case of SARS-CoV-2 — its incubation period is so large that we don’t even know that we have been infected by this virus until such time when it enters a symptomatic stage and clogs our lungs to make them dysfunctional.
And by now, we know — let alone any prayer, even any medicine is not able to save us.
Actually, there is a line that divides what we may achieve through prayer and what we may not achieve through prayer.
Take the case of this virus.
We did not have anything like electron microscopes through which we could have seen what the viruses look like and how they get maimed under various reagents.
Anyway, let us let bygones be bygones and look for the steps we may take to ensure that any new virus may not usher us close to the end of mankind.
Do you know — this virus is so contagious that if we would not have taken such precautions as to wear a mask or wash our hands with soap or spray a sanitizer on the things we touch and keep ourselves at a safe distance of at least one or two meters from the rest of people; by now, half of the mankind would have already got wiped out from the face of the earth?
We never know — maybe, even the dinosaurs should have got wiped out due to some viral epidemic only.
Though you, yourself, may be aware of some of the steps we may have to take to safeguard ourselves — if so, you may skip such steps.
But according to me — we may concern ourselves with the following steps.
(i) Take care of the new varieties of Corona Virus discovered in Myanmar
Though this time, China has been the epicentre of the viral-attack; we can’t rule out the chances of Myanmar becoming the next breeding centre of such a virus since three types of bats of Myanmar have been found to have as many as six new variants of Coronavirus, which may also spell a disaster. [1]
So we should start developing vaccines for them, right now.
(ii) Refine our Food-habits
Though it is indeed possible to not only groom new types of viruses in the lab — it is possible to even produce them on a mass scale. The fact is — it has been found that this virus had not been engineered in any lab since we need a backbone (overall molecular structure) of some existing virus to engineer any new virus in a lab and that does not happen to be the case with this virus.
The backbone of this virus does not match the backbone of any of the existing viruses. [2]
If we compare the food-culture of Chinese with the food-culture of the other countries — we find that though the people of most of the countries mind eating snakes, cockroaches, owls, bats, pangolins, rats, cats and dogs, the Chinese don’t hesitate to eat the meat of any of them.
And, as we know — this virus originated from some virus found in the body of a certain variety of Chinese bats which entered the humans detouring through some intermediary host, most probably — “pangolins”.
So, it would be better if they stop eating the bats and other nasty creatures such as cockroaches et cetera though I doubt — they ever would.
It can’t be denied that the Corona Virus would not have mutated into SARS-CoV-2 if the Chinese people would not have been so reckless about their food-habits.
Unless the Chinese people change the habit of eating even the bats and the pangolins, this virus may mutate again.
Viruses would never mutate if they switch over to Satvik Food (Vegetarian Food).
(iii) Stop thinking of the welfare of only own country
As we know — The Chinese made use of this virus to fulfil their long-cherished desire to excel the UK and Germany and replace the US as the next Super Power.
So they tricked first by creating a slump in the stock market and then by buying the shares of all big companies at rock-bottom prices.
Though this virus grew in the backyard of the Chinese only, they tried to cash it by out-beating USA and Japan.
Obviously, they did so by spreading this virus wilfully — bothering two hoots for the welfare of the rest of the world and let the economy of all other countries come to a grinding halt.
(iv) Give a “second-level ranking” to the religions and “first-level ranking” to the science and medicine
This virus has given a big blow to the age-old belief that if we keep on fudging with Nature, the Nature may retaliate or the belief that if we stop believing in the God — he may retaliate.
Every cleric and every priest thinks that the holy books don’t need any errata nor do they need any moderation.
Look at what had happened in the case of the Bible.
The Catholics sternly believed that the way the Muslims think about the Quran, it makes no sense criticising anything written in the Bible.
But clouds of gloom dawned on everyone when the astronomer Galileo pointed out that it was just a misgiving that the Earth should be the “centre of the universe” since not only the sun even none of the planets, revolve around the earth.
Even the Roman Church took note of it and sentenced him to life imprisonment in 1633 for contradicting the Bible so blatantly.
Though the Church, later on, apologized for having punished him, do you know — how long it took the Church to apologize?
Three hundred years.
That was about the Bible.
It raises a question — if it could happen with the Bible, what makes the Muslims think that Quran has to be an exception?
Actually, imams of the Indian mosques should have kept in mind that they should exercise their judgement regarding what may be relaxed under such unprecedented situations as have arisen in the country instead of honking on what is written in the Quran.
More so, because even the pilgrimages to Mecca has been closed the same way as even the biggest churches, have been closed across the world and even the shrines of Vaishno Devi, Shirdi and Tirupati have been closed.
They should not have let their people spit at the doctors or at the security-personnel who are only trying to check that this virus did not spread like wildfire as it has spread in most of the other countries.
There is no doubt that the number of the “Covid-19 positive cases” would not have jumped so high if they would have not prodded their people to ignore the advisories issued by the Modi-government based on the advice of the medical experts.
Earlier, it was thought that such calamities befall just because the God wants to punish us since it was not possible for anyone to have seen under a microscope how a virus looks like or under which reagents or solvents it gets inactivated — in the past.
But now, we can even pick up some part of the virus and prepare a vaccine out of it as have been already developed for numerous other viruses.
Therefore, it is more sensible to give a “second-level ranking” to the religions and “first-level ranking” to science and medicine.
It is time — we better thought of minding what the Canadian-French astrophysicist Hubert Reeves wants us to mind.
He wants us to pay more attention to the visible goddess — the “Nature” rather than the invisible “God”, as expressed in the following meme.
So it is high time, we start worshipping the Nature which we can see with our own eyes the way the Hindus have been worshipping ever since, say — in the form of obeisance to the sun by exposing their body to it in the manner shown below or by way of worshipping the medicinal plants such as Tulsi (basil) in their houses.
They had almost stopped this practice when the British people made a laughing stock of them during their rule though, now, even they know that if we expose our body to the sun during the early hours of the day, it produces “Vitamin D3” in our body.
The same was the case with the Indian custom of walking barefoot on the ground.
The British people told the Indians that it was more fashionable to wear shoes instead of walking barefoot.
Though it is true that the footwears indeed protect our feet from any injuries; our ancestors wanted us to walk barefoot on the earth because they were aware of the benefits of walking barefoot on the ground, especially over grass.
(v) Start taking spicy food just like Indians
The same way, though the westerners have been ridiculing the Indians for eating much too spicy food — it reflected only their unawareness about the reason why they use so many spices such as asafoetida, carom seeds, turmeric and a host of other spices in their diet.
All these spices, actually, create antibodies in our body that immunize us against most of the diseases.
(vi) Stop using non-degradable one-time-use items and modify the refuse-disposal systems
Whether Nature has taken its own course or not — we won’t know.
But it would be very foolish on our part if we don’t take a lesson from the lull created by this virus to stop converting the earth into a waste-bin by dumping millions of tonnes of garbage into the seas every day in the form of plastic-garbage which is killing the sea-animals.
The viruses grow only at unhygienic places.
For sure, the spread of this virus has awakened us that we should reform our lifestyle in a manner that we don’t pollute the planet — any further.
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[1] https://www.livescience.com/6-new-coronaviruses-found-bats.html?fwa
[2] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/03/200317175442.htm