Date: 03/30/2020

What happens if you don’t stay home during this Pandemic?

Do you feel lucky punk, do you? I imagine that’s what Clint Eastwood would say to everyone who’s outside right now.

Do you feel brave? A little invincible? Afterall, you’re a Gorkhali and your ancestry is that of war and bravery and triumph, so why shouldn’t you feel untouchable? But my friend, bravery is a thin line and across it is stupidity and ignorance. I don’t blame you for feeling brave and going outside regardless of whether or not the entire world is in lockdown. But you know that you could save lives by staying indoors for a couple of weeks, right?

Disclaimer: I am not a scientist or an expert trying to provide scientific evidence. You have absolutely no reason to listen to me, 100%. But, in the off chance that I am right, maybe you won’t have to suffer more than what’s already coming your way.

“Life is suffering.” – Gautam Buddha

The First Problem

The main reason the government has enforced a lockdown is to save lives. We should all appreciate the humanity and sacrifice it requires to impose such an outrageous governance in this modern world. However, the government would rather lose money than the lives of its citizens.

Maybe this also answers a question of police brutality in such times of crisis. If a whack in the butt of a few saves lives of a million, so be it. Okay! Maybe I don’t really mean that. It’s difficult to form an opinion on this.

Let’s focus on the topic at hand. What happens if you don’t stay at home during this lockdown?

The first and foremost effect is that you are susceptible to die or suffer excruciating pain. If you have been on the internet in the last couple of weeks, you should have an idea about the dangers of Covid 19.

Now, you might argue that your immune system is impeccable because of all the local cow’s milk you’ve been drinking and you might be right. But, can you say the same about your parents, or grandparents? The older they are, more likely it is that the consequences will be severe if they are unfortunate enough to be infected with Covid 19.

You might argue that you live alone, and I will argue that you have friends, lovers, and if not, you still have your neighbour. You might again fight back that you’re only going over to your friend’s place and I will ask you, why? You don’t know how many people your friend has met, or your friend’s father has come in contact with in the last two weeks? What makes you so sure they are safe? Surely, you have to realize that if everyone started going to their “friend’s place”, there wouldn’t be anyone quarantined and this disease would not be contained. Then, the whole country is screwed. The death toll will reach thousands, and we will wonder what could have been if only we had stayed inside when we were told to do so.

You need to think of it this way. Let’s suppose, the government issues a notice that there are terrorists with machine guns all over the country and nobody knows who they look like, where they live, what they wear or what they are capable of doing, but rest assured, if you come in contact with one, you will die along with everyone in your family. Maybe the whole community. How likely are you to leave the house now?

I get it. You would still want to sneak outside to smoke with your friends in the gallis where nobody can see you. The temptation to go outside on empty streets and feel the fresh air is too great for it is suffocating inside your room. You are anxious, you don’t know what to do and the thought of staying alone makes you go insane. You are not working so you don’t even know who you are anymore. You are gnawing at the walls to find the meaning of your existence. But, it’s okay. 

You are a human being with a brain that is capable of imagining the universe and everything in it. You are allowed to be anxious and sad and lost, but you have to face it through. You have always been bored. You have always struggled with life. You have also always wanted the world to pause. And this is the pause you wanted and needed desperately. Pick up a hobby, you can literally do anything (as long as it’s by yourself), and nobody’s forcing you to go outside and play or work. Do not let your loneliness determine the fate of mankind, of your community, of your family, of your life.

Your existence is not miserable because of the pandemic. You have always been miserable and this is your time to heal. Well, there’s no end to this discussion so we will just move on.

Real World Problems

Of course, there are real physical problems in the world to anticipate that can change reality forever. So, forgive me if I want to deviate from your philosophical qualms and existential crisis binding you to be a slave of your desires and not your choices.

Factually speaking, the world is currently trying to flatten the curve. This means, everyone will get it (Covid 19) sooner or later, or that’s the worst case scenario if there’s no vaccine or cure for Covid 19. Not that everyone is going to die, just that everyone will get it. Since symptoms are rather mild in most cases, most people might not even feel a thing and they will be immune to it.

However, the problem lies not with the immunity of the individuals but them being the contagion as they can still carry it to someone with weaker immunity. The problem lies with the ability of the health system to deal with the oversurge of patients.

Consider this, 10,000 people getting this disease in a day is far worse than 20,000 people getting it over a period of, say, two months. 

To put it in another way, you have a choice to decide whether your whole family will be sick for two weeks or only one member will be sick at a time but one after the other over the period of two months. Now, the second option is the scarier but it is the logical one because now you have three people in the family to take care of the fourth one.

Also, the entire health system might collapse if a lot of people are infected at the same time, especially in a third world country like ours where we severely lack the resources. 

That’s what’s happening in Italy right now, and it will be far worse if it happens here. Did you see that video where the Italian Prime Minister was crying on camera? Alright fine, that was a fake video, but that’s not too far from the truth anymore.

There are no beds in the hospital let alone ventilators and medicines. And when someone dies, there is no space in the cemetery to bury the dead loved ones. You are forced to wait alongside your dead mother or father or sister or lover and just wait there helpless until someone finds a spot for you to bury your heart with the dead body next to you. This is a painful situation nobody should have to go through. Having said that, this is the reality that we will not escape if we keep acting stubborn. Oh wait!! They won’t even let us see the dead bodies because they are infected. Honestly, I can’t decide which one would be more painful.

The problem with the collapse of the health system doesn’t end there. Three months after this whole pandemic is over and we are all free to roam again, you will go to the hospital with a loved one who’s sick and they will not have the medicines to treat the patients. They will not have something as simple as IV fluids to save lives. This is because everything is closed in the world, all the factories and all the supply chains. You might say, we will figure it out then and that is true. However, why would you put yourself through that?

Let’s Just Stay Inside and Get this Over with

The longer you choose to roam outside and meet people because you can’t handle staying alone, more and more people will continue getting affected and this lockdown will keep dragging on and on for who knows how long.

 Oh! Let’s not even get started on the economic collapse the world is going to suffer. You are happy that the birds are chirping again. But if we don’t get rid of the pandemic soon, we will all be prey for the vultures, also the cannibalistic ones soaring in the sky.

How do you fight, soldier? You are free to choose whatever you want. One of these days, when you have nothing to hang on to, you will have the choices you made in the time of crisis. Make sure it’s worthy of pride. Make sure you choose life. Make sure you stay home.