Return of the tiny

Never has been a weapon so low cost, and so highly effective. And never has been a population so careless, and so self-harming.

Till it actually hit us once again in a big way, we never heeded the warnings and advisories. We remained in a mood of denial, and acted in the most careless manner.

And it is this behaviour of ours that resulted in this dangerous spike in the cases of infection. Omicron is now almost everywhere, and the cases are rising like anything.

Now that the administration has flung into action, and some restrictions were observed on last weekend, we suddenly started realising that the monster is in the backyard.

The condition in the rest of India, especially some big cities, can give us an idea of how dangerous it can get, if it is not checked immediately. In Kashmir the cases suddenly picked up and it went into thousands. The official data in this regard can very well explain how sudden this spike has been.

And what is more disturbing is that not all people come forward for testing. In fact there is reason to believe that we have a substantial number of people who avoid testing, and thus we have an estimate that is far below the actual spread of the disease.

In this situation we all know what can stop it, but we still don’t do it. It has now been two years that all the concerned agencies that deal with this pandemic, and the consequent situations, have been crying from rooftops to wear masks, and avoid gatherings. But we have turned into deaf organism.

Now we cannot blame the virus only for this emerging situation, we have ourselves to blame. Once again people need to realise that a simple act of wearing a mask can save us from an imminent economic crisis. We all know that the economic condition of people cannot endure any more closure of markets.

The only thing that can ward off that disaster is to observe the full protocol: wear masks, maintain social distance, ensure hand hygiene, and strictly avoid gatherings.