The first report of sighting the corona virus in Wuhan in the province of Hubi in China came on November 17, 2019. China was cornered and forced to admit that in Wuhan, a 55 year old man was the first one to get infected. Though China had been trying to cover up the epidemic by torturing the doctors who had warned us about it and imprisoning the media persons who had tried to report the bad news, because of the intervention of the World Health Organisation, the country finally had to reveal the spread of COVID 19 in China. In no time, it grew into a pandemic. What we saw then was how this virus, named COVID 19 by the World Health Organisation, was altering the world order in 2020. Even though proper precautionary measures were taken, the disease spread to all the great nations. Strangely it was the rich and invulnerable ones who got affected easily and fatally. Prince Charles of England, Donald Trump, the US President, Boris Johnson, the British Prime Minister were affected along with every Tom, Dick and Harry in almost every country in the world. It didn’t make a distinction between the rich and the poor or the developing countries and the developed countries, thereby effecting socialism at least that way around the globe. Many well known and unknown people breathed their last within a few months of the pandemic.

Humanity had to arm itself to the teeth and then wear a mask to fight the tiniest of the tiny organism, a virus which can’t even move on its own. We all had to comply with the new ways of interaction and personal care. Overnight, our whole world turned upside down. Healthcare, economy, social life, politics, attire and apparel and almost every aspect of life was altered beyond recognition. The alteration did not come without its consequences. Language, literature, relationships, creeds and faiths, world view and the like also had to evolve accordingly to contain the changes. Mask, lock down, social distance, sanitiser, stay home and community kitchen were some of the words and phrases which levelled the difference among languages.

These words symbolised the extent of the new paths that we were fated to take. Education, Art, Film and the Media also had a metamorphosis. When the virus brought the world to a screeching halt, the poor who were caught between lock down and dying off didn’t know where to go to survive those hard times. The US practically lost its fight against the most massive weapon of destruction namely COVID 19. It lost its face as well when the vulnerability of the healthcare system was symptomized by the mortality rate. Developing countries like India have been able to manage itself more effectively than the so called great nations only because the public health care system at the grassroot level is very strong. We saw how the helpless people in the developed countries succumbed to the disease in the absence of proper medical care and well mobilized machinery. Obviously, in developed countries medical care is mostly market driven or pharmaco-driven. When the dons of the market decide how healthcare has to be provided,

It often insensitively affects the poor who have no access to proper medical care which is unaffordable for them. According to the statistics collected by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation which is run by a group of 36 countries, an American spends 10,209 dollars (7.76 lac INR) on medical help. A survey conducted in 2019 by Gallop revealed that one-third of the Americans shy away from taking medical treatments even for serious diseases solely because of the astronomical cost of medical care. Even though Canada, Britain and Australia implemented universal head healthcare the US is the only nation which still refuses to extend proper medical care to each and every citizen in the country. This is the reason why the American public is so interested in the health insurance plans and policies promised out during every election. For the immigrants in America too, coronavirus treatment is an economic nightmare. The treatment and its expenses forced the nations to rethink and rewrite their policies and attitudes regarding universal health care.

As 2020 says goodbye to us, the lesson we should carry forward is that man has no special privilege over any other species in this world.

When humans infringe upon the rights of other animals, it is sure to affect nature and upset its cyclic dynamics. The necessary structure of the biosphere goes for a toss and the parasitic micro germs which animals have been hosting will look for new hosts and find a conducive one in human beings. We cannot forget the lessons that we were taught in 2020 about our traditional values and modern outlook. Even though there is good news that vaccines to fight COVID 19 have been developed, the bad news is that the vaccines have already triggered mutation in the virus making it more virulent. Wiser after the event, man will have to be extra vigilant to void total extinction.