In the midst of the grinding tragedies of the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic and its accelerating negative developments, we may all be asked to answer questions like: Which section among us will survive? Certainly, the disease cannot kill us all, but it has already caused heavy losses for many of us. Rather, the losses trapped some members of society in severe circles of grief and suffocated those who lost more than before.
Perhaps a lot has arrived at some point during this pandemic to be told that you must choose what to preserve: your comfort? Your humanity? Your parents or older adults? Your job? Your lifestyle and your community? Is the idea here related only to choosing how to prioritise the things that we value, or is the question that arises related to how opening the country or proceeding with the closure procedures, whatever they are? Are you not with me that it is also a question about what happened and who will survive!
In fact, it is not just the officials or committee that has to answer, it is a question for each of us, in the individual sense, about how we deal with each other, about when and how we go to a store or grocery, about who we are and are not willing to make concessions to our employees and workers - if I talked about some companies, for instance. However, the most difficult questions we ask ourselves are still very small, because survival is probably not enough.
I fear what the epidemic may hold for us, yet I find myself optimistic that during the coming months this story will end, with everyone coming together and definitely taking the vaccine. Hopefully, it will be history as many events have come to end in the past, but the most important thing here is to realise that many people’s lives have completely regressed, no matter how normal we live, they have grown abnormally during this pandemic. I might say here that the natural from now on, it is the world that we can form together, individually and as a community.
In a way, it seems that the disease caused by this virus thrives on hope; as the situation improves before it gets worse in degrees, which soothes us in a moment of rest. Several patients have prescribed it as an event that appeared to be on the mend, followed by a new, more terrible phase of the disease. Fever, fatigue, pain, and shortness of breath begin to diminish, but only after that, some despair takes hold of the lungs and the patient becomes in the arms of the virus and its illness, dragging him to a frightening and even sad fate.
Thus, this leads us to the concept of caring and learning that taking care of ourselves means, on some level, caring for those around us. And here is the undoubted interest not only in the things in our lives and their impact on our world, but in the people who made them and gave them to us. There is no guarantee either of us that even if we took this care, we would survive! But since the virus is spreading, it also spreads awareness as well as foretells a deep and long-term collapse of society (if its members do not follow medical instructions and take the vaccine). Nevertheless, I find myself here hoping to struggle for something greater than survival.
The virus can use any number of weapons against us, such as fear and greed, for example, until most members of society are vaccinated or infected. Interestingly, we will apparently continue like this in a slow and painful game of chess with this pandemic, as its moves do not appear until weeks and months after we made our moves. Perhaps a moment of neglect gives the killer a chance, so it seems to be that the best strength on our part is care. I see that we really need to rejuvenate the life we left behind and start with how we care about each other.
Dr Yousuf Ali al Mulla, MD, Ministry of Health, is a medical innovator and educator. For any queries regarding the content of the column, he can be contacted at: dryusufalmulla@gmail.com
Dr Yousuf Ali al Mulla
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