Not so long ago, remember seeing this social media post about value of real friends versus online friends? You may have thousands of Facebook friends or lakhs of Twitter followers but many have experienced that in time of need, one is left to fend all by oneself.
Mixing and spending time with friends and family, going out on vacation, exploring the unexplored were de rigueur. But with the advent of deadly Covid-19 rampaging across the world suddenly intermingling with folks both known & unknown have become a big NO.
Reason is rather simple to understand. Though the origin of Corona Virus is still unclear & debatable its spread surely happens from human to human. And that’s what we need to focus – CUT THE CONTACT between humans.
It is assumed 1 corona virus infected person over 5 days may infect 2.5 more persons and if the social mingling continues unabated over 30 days 406 people may get infected.
(Western world model)
In densely populated areas like many cities of Asia, they are likely to infect more i.e. assumed to be around five people. If the infection chain passes through say, ten people then that 1st person of the chain will probably be responsible for infecting (5^10) = 9,765,625 others, pretty quickly. With no medical cure available, at this moment only solution is ‘Break the chain – stay away.’
Reducing intermingling by 50% or 75% could yield decent results but not complete eradication. Hence, many across the world are striving for 100% cut-off by ‘lockdown’ of not just cities but entire countries (& by extension people living there). Italy, South Africa and India just to name 3 countries that have gone for complete lockdown.
Some of the other remedial measures taken to enhance Social Distancing are :
* Instead of working from office encourage wherever possible working from home (using email, online meeting tools, screen & file share etc)
* Attending online classes instead of physical ones.
* Temporarily closing restaurants, pubs, theatres, malls, clubs etc
* Deferring
sporting events (Formula 1, Euro 2020, Olympics 2020 etc),
concerts & gala anniversaries (Madonna, Pearl Jam, Cannes Film Festival etc),
exhibitions (Drupa, Mobile World Congress etc)
to distant future dates.
The high-risk people viz. elderly and those with deficient immune systems or with other health problems should immediately distance themselves from the public. These high-risk individuals would be better equipped to protect themselves from being exposed to the virus by Social Distancing and also as a potential threat to others.
This doesn’t mean that others are less susceptible and be allowed to take things lightly. Absolutely NO. Even if one remains casual, he /she could become the dangerous carrier thereby potentially harming the entire humanity.
As corona virus infected people are found to be initially asymptotic i.e. showing no symptoms and consider themselves fine, it is for common good that we don’t take things carelessly and maintain utmost caution. Cutting oneself off and maintaining social distancing could be a good, easy and only solution to ward off this menace.
Take care and stay safe.
(Views expressed here are personal)
By,Sabyasachi Dutta Managing Director – Vidatec India
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