Covid 19 The New Normal

29 Nov 2020

Mishti's Diwali Holidays ended last week. I allowed her to go down to play with two of her friends. The girls wore masks, gloves and carried a small bottle of sanitizer with them. 

Every morning Mishti would wake up, eat her breakfast, get ready and call her friend. I loved watching them playing, running and chatting nonstop after so long.

But the cases soon rose and we had to held her back at home again.

I asked her, 'Why don't you finish your holiday homework :)'.

She took her stuff to the bedroom, but did not start with her task. I asked her if she did not want to do it now?

She was about to cry. Said, "It's the topic... I really don't like it."

The topic was 'Covid19 The New Normal'.

"It feels like ...it will never go. Is this how we will have to stay forever?"

I could feel the fear..the pain..

The next half an hour, Adi and I told her about the past pandemics. About how they were worse and still ended. About how those times were even more difficult with lesser medical facilities and amenities and yet there was a way out. We gave her hope that if the world could come out of Spanish flu, it can definitely come out of this.

At the end of the conversation she was convinced that Covid19 is never going to be the new normal and she wrote this -

Covid-19 The new normal?

No, never! Though covid-19 has been there for about a year and it might seem like this is the first pandemic, it is not. There have been longer and more dangerous pandemics before. One example is the influenza virus or Spanish flu. This pandemic started in 1918, since there weren’t many scientists or doctors that time, it was hard to develop a vaccine. Spanish flu mostly affected young people and more soldiers were dying due to Spanish flu compared to the soldiers dying at the war. This pandemic ended in 1940.

Even though this pandemic was very dangerous, it ended. And, I believe that if Spanish flu ended even though there were very few doctors and scientists, this pandemic will definitely end soon. Till then people around the world are taking precautions. Even I took precautions like

 ~ Wearing a mask 

 ~  Washing my hands from time to time

 ~ Follow social distancing

 ~ Not going out as much as possible

 ~ Celebrating festivals at home

And if the school reopens, I will take all the precautions.

I believe that Covid-19 is never going to be the new normal, because this pandemic will end like every other pandemic did.  However, this is just my way of seeing it , it’s just my perspective. So, I ask again -

“Is Covid-19 the new normal?”