Md. Muzibur Rahman :
In the last days of 2019 when Corona Virus (Covid-19) 1st wave outbreaks in the country, we were not so ready first because we did not know the symptoms or causes of its outbreaks. We know that Covid-19 had seriously affected our overall economy, people’s health & education, their lives & livelihood. So far we know that near over 28,000 peoples in Bangladesh had died; millions of peoples were affected seriously. The whole world was lock down for safety of the peoples & property.
The consciousness & guidelines by the World Health Organization (WHO) & other renowned health organizations of the world helped us in many ways to fight with the 1st wave of Covid-19 & that is why we saved us so many ways & the deaths were less with comparison with other nations of the world. Our present Government & Health Ministry had taken serious measures to combat this fatal disease. Our hospitals & health centers were prepared accordingly & our doctors, nurses, government officials (both civil & military) had taken urgent steps & carefulness to fight against this pandemic. Advertisements & consciousnesses were spread by the central & local authority in the Mosques, Temples & other religious warships & where are necessary. The second wave of Covid-19 which was continuing late 2020 to mid 2021had also affected on our national income, employment & people’s health & lifestyle.
Government was flexible to all measures to combat this fatal disease & sanctioned & allocated more public & private resources to overcome it. Facilities & capacities of public & private hospitals were significantly increased & mass vaccination programmes undertaken to bring all the people of the country under vaccination. Vaccines like Oxford-AstraZeneca, Pfizer-BioNTech were brought from foreign countries. Government is trying to vaccinate all eligible people. The third wave of Covid-19 with new variant Omicron is now raging different countries of the world killing thousands of people.
People around the world are concerned about the Omicron variant of COVID-19. But what is Omicron? According to UN definition, we can define it in the way that the Omicron variant of COVID-19 has been called a variant of concern by WHO based on the evidence that it has several mutations that may have an impact on how it behaves. There is still substantial uncertainty regarding Omicron and a lot of research underway to evaluate its transmissibility, severity and reinfection risk.
The Omicron variant has now been detected in many countries around the world. WHO reports that Omicron is probably in most countries, even if it hasn’t been detected yet. It has warned that the covid virus might appear as Tsunami across the globe because the new variant Omicron is on surge in different countries. In the meantime, the corona virus infection situation is rising in the country. According to Director General of Health Services (DGHS), 4 more covid-19 patients have died & 674 infection cases were recorded in the last 24 hours till Monday (03-01-2022) morning. Now come to the point. Are we ready to fight/overcome this variant? We can take some precautionary measures to combat it.
As wear a mask that covers our nose and mouth, make sure that our hands are clean when you put on and remove our mask, keep a physical distance of at least 1 metre from others, avoid poorly ventilated or crowded spaces, open windows to improve ventilation indoors, wash our hands regularly, get vaccinated. There may be other precautionary measures like strictly follow health guidelines, take doctor’s advice if attacked by the Omicron variants. Promulgations of protective measures can be spread out in Religious Warships, School, Colleges, Universities, Courts, Offices, Hats, Markets, Ferry Ghats, & like other crowded places. Neat & clean measures can be taken in roads & highways, towns & city corporation areas especially for garbage & waste management.
Meetings, seminars, discussions can be arranged by politicians/bureaucrats/ businessmen or by other ordinary citizens to make consciousness among the peoples where they feel necessary. If we all are united, serious & promised to combat this pandemic, we will be able fully to eradicate this variant forever from our country.
(Md. Muzibur Rahman is Writes on development & economic issues, can be reached at: E-mail: [email protected])
