Shah Muhammad Shirajis Shadik :
The whole world was dismayed by the news of natural tragedies throughout the year 2019. Along with other tragic events, Bushfires either in the Amazon or in Australia burnt thousands of plants and killed billions of lives of both animals and humans. Species were destitute from their habitats and were bound to flee from their beloved home. Who was responsible for those fires- Nature? Or Human? The answer must be subject to scrutiny. But Amazon bushfires are more likely to be originated from man-made causes for the sack of neo-classical economic development. Even the populist political leaders of Brazil claim their part of Amazon to be rather industrialized for their economic purposes.
Question is, how our mother nature will survive without its Amazon-lung? No one has the exact answers. Yes, scientists did try to block such havocs made on nature repeatedly forecasting the upcoming catastrophic consequences of climate change. But the world is more lead by capitalists’ lords than of those studious serfs. So, there it goes.
Meanwhile, Mother Nature did cook another serious tragedy that the modern world was not ever experienced and was not even quite aware of. The highly infectious COVID-19 virus changed the whole play with very different actors and actresses in the stage. The world is now ravaged with its hungry endeavor. The good morning sunshine is now a nightmare story for millions of people worldwide. With infections, deaths, devastations, lock-downs, and economic losses, people around the world have reinvented themselves in the past few months. Yet it’s claiming thousands of human lives every day. In human history, Pandemics’ are recurring events. But as it didn’t seriously happen over the last century and we did already build an enormous trust in our modern healthcare forgetting such devastating antiquities.
So, the question that looms large in the peoples’ minds all over the world that what was lacking in our healthcare, in the hygiene senses that could have prevented us from being infected? And how was that?
Yes! We were strayed a lot from the general health rules. Let me share a very personal story. My niece, who is a graduate student at Dhaka University, was used to wearing a mask whenever she went outside to the university or other places far before the pandemic arose. I felt stranger using such obstructing barrier on my face and was always thinking that how she can carry that all the time! The question that peep my mind nowadays that who was right then? Me or my niece?
Obviously, it was her. In the Dhaka city which is infamous for its polluted air standing as the second-largest polluted city of the world, she was boldly right in her hygiene sense than of me, most of us. Now we all are covering our faces, mouths, hands, and even head to toe to remain disinfected from a deadly virus. We perhaps kept a blind eye on the World Health Organization’s study that about 17 million people die worldwide each year for infectious diseases and the famous science journal Lancet found that 17% of the total deaths of the year 2013(similar percentage rate are there for the next consecutive years), was due to those infectious diseases.
This pandemic has brought us back to the right hygiene culture that we required to follow from far before. Of course not all of it and not by all of us, but it is not overstated to say that most of us, from less educated to the most educated selves, had some severe deviation from the healthy hygienic habits along with terribly bad food habits. To boost the immune system, now we look for taking those foods that we needed to look for in the past to have an immune body.
Vitamins and minerals are now on our quests than nicotine or alcohol. Now we clean our clothes, shoes, etc. on a regular or inflated basis that we could have followed in the past and what we did so long continue for having some weird fashions. Maintaining a healthy social distance in public places is a gentleman practice that we were forgetting to practice which is a god-forsaken reality in the immensely over-populated cities of Bangladesh. Hugs, handshakes, and kisses are needed to be hygienic as well, we forgot it too. Although those bind us with beautiful social ties, it should not be by the cost of our hygiene. We started spending more on arranging gaming tournaments, making movies and enjoying it, spending in night clubs, bars, shopping malls, and other entertainment activities than on our healthcare and food, and this pandemic has put a sharp reminder on it.
As it should be for Mother Nature, so it is for humans; the common rules and harmony should never be broken. If we do that, a fury from nature may attack us at any time claiming the single most treasured thing that we have, our lives. We have developed a lot to control and operate the nature, again we yet lack a lot to prevent such wraths of nature. Time to learn this lesson with better hygiene rituals. Throughout the world, public healthcare was struggling to fight against this virus. It is also said that this pandemic has uncovered the awful dodges of the healthcare systems of the most developed countries. It’s a big question nowadays in our country that ‘was it justified privatizing our majority healthcare systems copying the development dogma of World Bank or others’?
The answer must be NO. But the reality is two-third of the country’s healthcare services are already privatized making ‘Healthcare’ a commodity rather than a rationalized public service. Health Insurances, which is mandatory for every citizen in most developed countries, are yet not present here. As a post-pandemic strategy, the government may think it seriously to provide such insurances for all the citizens step by step. Job holders either in public places or in private places should be made compulsory to have insurance in the 1st stage. Gradually, in the long run, everyone might be incorporated. Let’s all maintain proper hygiene in our everyday life.
(The author is a lecturer in Public Administration at the University of Barishal and a Social Researcher. Email: [email protected])
