The pandemic has imposed a premium on the way we work and think. The new normal is not visibly apparent. But is now embedded in everyone’s psyche. The over dependence on our smart phones and social media platforms for information has not made things easier with the personal touch gone. Was all that we read or wrote true or authentic? We must have had a lot of untrue/false information disseminated as well. No one was interested in providing adequate evidence. No one tried debunking myths with facts.
While on myths and facts, a lot has been said and written about vaccines that we used during the Pandemic, a common myth was that the ingredients in COVID-19 vaccines were dangerous and even prohibited for use by certain religions. There are certain sections of people who have steadfastly refused to be vaccinated for reasons such. Recently, Novak Djokovic, the 20-time Grand Slam winner said he would rather miss out on future tennis trophies, than be forced to get a Covid vaccine. He even said, it is the price that he was willing to pay. He preferred deportation to being vaccinated and cited freedom to choose what one put in one’s body as his reason.
Facts are sometimes difficult to believe. Nearly all the ingredients in COVID-19 vaccines are also ingredients in many foods such as fats, sugars, and salts. They do not contain preservatives, tissues like aborted foetal cells, antibiotics, food proteins, medicines, latex, or metals. Some of them contain messengers like RNA (mRNA) or may even contain a harmless version of a virus unrelated to the virus that causes COVID-19.
These are the instruction givers to cells in our body to create an immune response which is what protects us from getting sick in the future. Once the body produces an immune response, it discards all the vaccine ingredients, just as it would discard any information that cells no longer need.
Mental health has been a casualty for many during the pandemic. Whereas many felt mental health does not or would not affect them, or that it would not affect the children, the facts tell us something else. Studies have revealed that high distress and anxiety due to COVID-19 resulted in poor psychological well-being, increase in suicidal tendencies, protracted pre-existing mental health conditions to name a few. The study further revealed that it has severely affected the family relationships and social dynamics, saw increase in cases of domestic violence, and abuse of alcohol. The pandemic made matters worse, with joblessness and personal illness. In December, last year, the Centre said in Rajya Sabha that 10.6% of adults in India faced some kind of mental disorder which was aggravated by the pandemic. ‘WHO’ reported that India has only 0.25 psychiatrists per lakh population, which is considered very low in comparison to many other countries in the sub-continent.
Contrary to what one may believe or accept, in the fight against the pandemic in 2020, the latest report by National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) in India indicated that more people were lost to suicide than Covid-19. Whereas we lost more than 1.53 lakhs to suicides, the highest in the last 10 years, almost 25% of the total, bulk of them being daily wage workers, the main reason being job losses, the union health ministry data shows that close to 1.49 lakh people died in 2020 due to the coronavirus infection. One other prime reason was, illness contributing to 18% of total suicides. No reason was attributed to the remaining, indicating a possibility of mental distress due to varied reasons.
These indicators must surely mean that mental health must be included as a treatment in primary healthcare arrangements and the number of medical practitioners to address the issue increased over time. Social-emotional well-being of children and youth must be a priority, for India has a large young population. The benefits are many. Higher overall productivity, better educational outcomes, lower crime rates, stronger economies, lower health care costs, improved quality of life, increased lifespan and improved family life are all possible.
One other major ill in the society that was evident during the pandemic was an almost 500% rise in Cyber Crime. Prime reasons being a gradual moving of data into the open domain with many firms permitting employees to work from home and rise in digital payments. Whereas the former allowed sensitive information become susceptible to security vulnerabilities, the later allowed digital fraud.
Of course, Cybercrime would only rise, due to new technologies such as drones, ransomware, and Internet of Things (IoT) devices. An attacker would always device new strategies and use technology even more, when he sees a premium attached to his work. The pandemic provided the opportunity when we started adopting interconnected devices and hybrid work environment, increasing our dependence on technology, making ourselves even more vulnerable than before. Probably it is time to amend the Information Technology Act, 2000, that deals with cybersecurity and cybercrimes so it provides for the new-age changes and the new age technology.
Even as we were engaged in finding solutions to the pandemic-imposed restrictions and started working from home, we lost social capital and even creative capital. Social isolation increased with employees needs for informal contact and spontaneous interaction not being met. Too many virtual meetings, extended and irregular work hours too did not help. Microsoft tried some innovative ways to overcome the social isolation, through a watercooler bot that runs in Teams, that introduced two people to each other who wouldn’t normally meet. However, it had only a limited success.
There is a flip side to the pandemic. It is not as if we only lost. We gained too. The pandemic created a fully digital global workforce overnight which is a positive. We were not required to commute, waiting through meaningless traffic jams. We had more time for our families which improved feelings of wellbeing. We had freedom from constant office interruptions. Since we had flexibility, we could use our time at home to create our own work schedules, cook better meals, and exercise more. We could connect with anyone anywhere across time zones and share ideas that had a remote-first-thinking advantage.
Which out-weighs which other is a perspective. The need to survive and succeed is the human spirit. There will be, of course, more calamities. However, let the human spirit prevail.