When COVID 19 came in the year 2019 it brought about death and destruction all over the world. This virus not only affected people physically but also affected a lot of people’s health mentally. During the spread of COVID 19 when it initially surfaced in India Nobody knew that this would turn into a pandemic everyone in India thought this was for a short period of time and prayed and hoped that this wouldn’t last long.
With the first lockdown being imposed in the month of March for mere two days it later turned into months of lockdown and lead to millions of people losing their lives, livelihoods, income, and also brought about a technological shift which in turn lead India to new heights in terms of virtual education.
With the commencement of online classes, the privileged had fun because they had a roof over their head and food to eat. Whereas the poor suffered not only because they were daily wage workers but also because many of them did not have a roof over their heads or a place to stay or food for at least one time a day.
Many people like the daily vendors vegetable vendors, fast food shop owners, and many other businesses-huge businesses as well as small businesses were shut down. Or they did not generate enough profit for them to keep going on as people weren’t allowed to go out of their houses to work.
corporates allowed for work from home but people whose livelihoods was based on day-to-day work which involved them selling things on the street or even in their shops which resulted in the poor becoming poorer.
Thousands of labors were seen walking in the rain, winters, summers as transportation was shut down because of fear of COVID spreading.
This virus first surfaced in China’s Wuhan where it started out as normal flu or cold before it came into the notice of the world the COVID-19 virus had spread immensely all through China and all around the world because people returned from China and other places of the world and this virus was contagious.
World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 a pandemic, this virus is also known as SARS-CoV-2. The common symptoms of COVID are runny nose cold cough fever problem in breathing sometimes and loss of taste and smell in some cases. Approximately 80% of the people who are infected with COVID-19 showcase mild symptoms and can infect other people if they came in contact with them, approximately 14% show serious symptoms, and approximately 5% of people showcase critical symptoms.
The virus can affect a person in the form of pneumonia, problem in breathing, affecting lungs, in severe cases respiratory failure and multi organ dysfunction or failure which can result in deaths.
COVID-19 virus was able to generate new variants and there were few dominant variants which affected masses and was spread quickly all around the world, namely- the alpha variant, the gamma variant, the beta variant, the delta variant, and the omicron variant.
After having the COVID-19 restrictions or the lockdown restrictions lifted it was a sight to see, people were not worried of contracting the virus hence masks were made not mandatory in public places.
there are a few things that we all must know and that the virus changed in us like staying clean which involves washing hands before eating after eating, coming home from somewhere and getting freshened up etc, it also taught us social distancing which in some cases and sometimes a good thing as it can cause less crowd in public places and can also lead to good health for everybody.
When the restrictions were there people worked from home, there was a lot of change in people’s behavior be it in terms of speaking, their body language. During the COVID-19 spread everybody was at home and experienced the most important thing which was appreciating family time, and what they were blessed with. The pollution in the country reduced as only essentials we’re working so less amount of vehicles on the road, which resulted in less traffic and less pollution.
Individuals started learning online, earning online, starting new businesses, becoming entrepreneurs, and learning how to cook. Everyone learned the importance of the frontline workers like doctor, nurses, security guards, people in the armed forces, naval forces, and Air Force. they also understood the importance of teaching in classrooms which was what they despised earlier but they understood that it was more effective, they also understood the importance of a fruit vendor or a vegetable vendor or anyone who was doing the task of selling things by standing on the road or sitting on the road or travelling on the road.
The world it’s back to square one, China has seen a surge in the COVID cases approximately 30 million people have been infected with the virus, it’s all how it started in 2019- scarcity of beds in the hospitals, scarcity of medicines, scarcity of the staff, exploitation of the resources.
people in India fear that the rapidly spreading omicron B .7 variant in China has brought a lot of destruction there and there are chances of it spreading to India as well. Experts in India say that people in India do not need to worry as this variant has less chances of causing Damage to Indians.
A few cases have already emerged of this new variant in India, the experts believe that our vaccine will protect us against this virus. India has seen a rise in vaccinations for COVID-19, be it their first and second dose or the booster dose.
The threat of a lockdown is what people are scared about, as many people have started odd jobs after COVID-19 hit India to help their families after they lost their business or jobs.
Another factor that can scare the people is the cold weather, even during the wide outspread of the COVID-19 virus when the winters came the experts said that the virus is bound to spread quickly, people got worried even if they got common cold and thought it was COVID some also worried that they have COVID even when they had no problems it took a toll on people’s mind.
Many individuals suffered from mental health problems, and there was seen a surge in suicide cases in India as well as other countries. Earlier there was a misbelief that if you contract the COVID-19 virus you are bound to die but that wasn’t the case if a person had already existing health issues, they were bound to contract the virus easily and it would affect them majorly.
The authorities in India were criticized as the functioning of online portals was not up to the date, there was also criticism about people not getting oxygen cylinders for severe cases, a few state governments were criticized as the people who were taking the issue up to social media were being charged with defamation as the state governments claimed that everything was under control.
According to the authorities India will likely not see a lockdown but that does not mean that carelessness should be shown in public places. If people start wearing masks and avoid spread at the early stage it can lead to the virus being contained in the early stage otherwise it can lead to a widespread of the virus which will wreak havoc in the country as the country is still coming out of the economic blow that it got during the COVID outbreak.
Even after assurances from the government the current cases of COVID in the country are approximately 3,468. Which is a huge number as it is starting to spread in different parts of the country. With Maharashtra leading with the greatest number of COVID cases followed by Kerala, Karnataka and, Tamil Nadu.