The role of a government in a pandemic

 What is the role of an elected government during a pandemic?

Is its role to protect each life or make wide sweeping decisions for the greater good ? How much of such a decision making policy have to do with out cultural context ? Let's say, we as Indians have always been more skewed to the collective rather than the individual. So is the government also more skewed towards protecting the many rather than the individual ? 

I'm going to make a disclaimer here and say that I have nothing for or against the current BJP government- both centre and state- in this particular topic. 

My questions are about the vaccines we have and their approx 0.61/million chance of killing anyone who takes them. (Clots post vaccination ). This percentage  seems to be still under debate, but we know that it is not zero. Some people, very few people, are developing clots and even fewer still - to the tune of 6 people out of 1 crore of those who take the vaccines are dying. And we are 140 crore people in this country. Even if we manage to vaccinate half the population we are talking about 400 odd people dying due to the vaccines.

So, in the interest of protecting a larger number of the population from dying, this is effectively government approved death of a smaller number of people. And we have to pay for the chance to die- the vaccines are not even free! for the 18-44 year old group.  

Our government is not alone in making this hard decision of using an imperfect vaccine, several others have chosen to continue with the available vaccine - Astrazeneca or other easily available vaccine- than waiting for a perfect vaccine- which will not have the risk of death associated with it. Some European countries have halted the use of the clot-risk vaccine for the section of the population with highest risk of clot development. Some developing countries have also stopped the use of this vaccine. Is it because they are places where the individual good is more important than the collective good? Are those the places where every single life is important?  Why is every single person's life not important in India? Is it because we have a lot of disposable population? Where if a few extra people die, it is thought to be okay? 

This is a pandemic- and all solutions should be welcome. There is no perfect solution. There is no perfect vaccines. All vaccines come with some side effects. I agree with all these statements. So, we should use the vaccines we have. But can't the government restrict its use in the population group where the clots are occurring more and mortality is the result. Why can't they spend money and political effort to get a vaccine that doesn't kill people? Where deaths can be avoided, we should avoid them, no?

Life will go on.....

 Life must go on. Haven’t we seen enough movies set in post-apocalyptic worlds to know this truth? Even setting aside the jokes, in living memory, human beings have always found a way to cling to life – floods have comes, earth quakes and tsunamis, but life finds a way. It always does.

So even though this past two years has felt like the end of the world, it is not really the end. Well, You (reader) and I might still die due to covid, people around us, our loved ones, friends and extended family, will still live on to do stupid things another day. 

Small comfort, but we should take them where we find them, no?

Why a believer must partner with a non-believer

 I was raised by a believer – full on faith in god- mother and a non-believer - an agnostic father. I believe that this has given me a balanced perspective. I am neither and I am both. I’m tempted by both belief systems. I am comforted by both and I think that both give me succor when I need it.

Let us be real for a minute- religion is not going anywhere. It has been around for thousands of years and all literature and propaganda from the communists and atheist movements notwithstanding, there is a reason that religions have endured in all parts of the world in different forms. When people believe in something together, it has more power. Would I believe something easily if others did not believe before me, along with me and the idea did not have enough power to make people believe after me? Humans seem to give more power to an idea when others think it’s a good idea. Call it the peril of being a social thinking animal. It’s the same thing with atheists. If the first atheist in any part of the world did not succeed in convincing the second person that his/her idea that there were no superior beings or Gods watching over them would their movement be so wide spread?

But coming back to the power of groupthink or group belief, religion offers people an out. A place of safety, where sins are forgiven, where fears are assuaged and there is a feel good factor when we place our burdens elsewhere – as in, at the feet of god and immediately there is a feeling of lightness. Religion has been called the opiate of the masses in the past. In today’s age, maybe God is the therapist of the masses. I mean, the sheer amount of money seeing a therapist regularly would cost. Clearly it’s cheaper to believe.  But, jokes aside, the point is that religion has value, however ephemeral it may be.

Meanwhile, the rational point of view- not believing anything that cannot be seen, heard or felt – as in God and the faith in a superior entity, gives us a comfort too, that we have only ourselves to depend on. That the universe is a random place where nothing is predictable and anything can happen anytime and hence now is the time to just live our lives.

I believe that having both perspectives and not being too attached to seeing God and religion in only one way is essential to stop having fanatical thoughts / ideologies of either kind. If every person out there decided to marry and tolerate a person who has the opposing viewpoint about religion, we would have no religion terrorism. Wouldn’t that be a great thing?

The long life of the Mask

 So, we have been masking up for nearly a year now. And it has made a difference for a lot of people. Forget about the corona virus, the flu season went by without being noticed due to this new mask wearing habit we have been saddled with. Every year, like clock work, between the months of November and  February, I would be afflicted with at least two bouts of the cold-cough-sore throat symptoms and maybe with a bout of fever as well. My eldest who has reactive airway issues, would get have a runny nose all day and a stuffy one all night and we could all forget our sleep. But this year, she hasn't gotten an episode. Not a single one. 

But, as the data already suggests, people are not being as mask compliant now as they were in the beginning of the un-lockdowns. (Whoever came up with that should be beaten. That is unwieldy. Lockdown made sense. But shouldn't someone in Delhi have put in more of an effort to come up with something better than un-lockdown?) When I drive to rural centres in Karnataka ( work-related day trips), I can see very well that the people there don't wear masks at all. Blame the open country-side and the absence of crowded, unventilated, air-conditioned spaces and maybe the effect of cohabiting with farm animals, the people living in villages seem hardier than us city folks when it comes to disease resistance. So, they never wore masks to begin with, shrugging off Covid-19 like a mild pest that affects only city dwellers. 

Not to mention, we as a species communicate more with our expressions and body language than our words. So if the mask covers up 2/3rds of our face- how effectively are we communicating? Also, we have a need to see the faces of the people we love. So, is long term mask-compliance even possible? Also, we are social animals. The ingenious outdoor birthday parties in my apartment complex shows me how much the aunties miss their get-togethers. ( I doubt the kids are the driving force behind these parties. It is the mothers who organise these shindigs and fathers are a complete no-show. ) I miss meeting my family face to face, and I feel that most people feel the same. (There are exceptions to every rule. I'm sure someone is rolling their eyes at this and saying good riddance to their relatives using Covid-19 as the happy excuse to miss any and all gatherings. 

So, when can we safely say goodbye to the mask, I keep wondering. A year? Two? Arrggghhhh......