Thoughts in the time of the Corona

This corona phase will hopefully pass - the question is how much toll it will take before it saturates and people start getting immune to it -- or a vaccine will be invented, tested and marketed at large scale. But I am sure humanity will not be obliterated by it.

The economic fall out -- after the situation passes -- should be considered and planned by all governments. The daily wage earners, the workers in transportation and hospitality businesses will be extremely hard hit -- leading to huge lack of liquidity in the market. Donations will dry out given the huge losses by companies due to heavily reduced productivity and stock market diving in to abyss. So, governments must prepare relief packages for supporting those losing daily wages, and those businesses highly affected by this situation. Only government that I have seen so far which has declared a comprehensive economic package to bring the economy back on its feet in the aftermath -- is Singapore. Other governments need to learn from them and start bringing in the best economic and financial planners to discuss possible packages that can sustain the consumers. Otherwise more misery and death will result in the aftermath -- not from the virus but from starvation and poverty.

Keeping the daily essentials supply sustained -- the governments must intervene. Right now it is a hoarders market. The shops are being raided by hoarders, supplies are dwindling and prices will soon shoot up. Lessons must be learnt from the aftermath of World War II when such situations led to huge scarcity of food and supplies and only the rich and upper middle classes survived unscathed.

Finally, it is time for the citizenry in every country to question why the government did not spend enough in building hospitals, clean medical facilities, trained nurses and medical professionals in large numbers -- to plan for contingencies like this. This is not the only time this will happen. This may become more frequent given the various problems the planet is being subjected to.

Also, people should stop blaming the Chinese and stop spinning conspiracy theories regarding the origin of the virus. All experts agree that there is no merit to the points that the eating habits of the Chinese made covid-19 possible. Also, it is unlikely that China has launched this bio weapon to gain economic advantages. These unfounded theories need to be stopped from being propagated. People should not forward such unsubstantiated stories through social media.

Governments spend enormous amounts of their budget in buying arms, and ammunition, and spend only about 1-2% in health care -- and spend enormous amounts in building statues, publicity of the government schemes, and allow their crony capitalist friends to hoard most of the country's wealth. Think about the hospitals that could be built in place of 4500 crores in publicity in the last 6 years, 3000 crores in building statues, 3000 crores in foreign travels by politicians, thousands and thousands of crores for ammunition to scare the neighboring countries, thousands of crores in bullet train and so on. If hospitals were built with that amount of tax payer money - then we would not have 1 hospital bed per 2000 people in India (including expensive private hospitals which most cannot even afford).

In the aftermath, I hope citizens will ask these questions seriously and take all governments be it state, federal, municipal or panchayat -- to task for their failure to create the health infrastructure that is prepared for these kinds of pandemics. In the aftermath, I think people will realize the futility of communal-ism, rabid nationalism, populist government stances, and demand that the tax payer money be used to build infrastructure for all and reduce dependency on private hospitals and health centers which are only affordable by maximum 10% of the population.

The government should be asked to reduce expenditure on war, and war mongering, spreading lies and fake news, and make proper use of tax payer money to protect the tax payers. The people should be prepared to reject false issues like religious bigotry, temple/mosque/church building, statue building and war mongering --- misusing the names of the defense forces. People should realize the importance of equitability in the society. It is time to emphasize social and economic justice and equality more -- and make a charter of demands to enable such social order.

My hope out of this pandemic for which we are so ill prepared is that it will awaken people to the realization that what has been so far been done to them has been extremely wrong. People should learn the lesson and take a fresh look at how we should function as nations if we want to survive perpetually.