A Coronavirus Diary: Face Masks for Everyone
It has now been nearly three weeks since the lockdown orders, and rather than being eased up, they have become more restrictive to try and curtail the increasing spread of the coronavirus. Parks are now closed, social distancing requirements have become stricter, and we are being advised to wear face masks every time we need to go out for an essential task.
I got a first-hand experience of the new restrictions yesterday when I had to do my weekly grocery trip. In contrast to my last visit, the grocery was noticeably quieter with a lot less people and a lot less banter among the employees. Everyone, including myself, shopped in silence, quickly and efficiently, and checked out at the register as soon as possible. A good proportion of the employees as well as customers were wearing masks, and since I didn’t have one, I had taken a scarf which I thought I could wrap around my face. But it kept falling off, and given how somber the atmosphere was, I couldn’t wait to get out of there. I actually got home wondering if I had picked up the virus at the grocery, as I felt some chills later on in the day. I hope not, but one can never tell.
At this point, no one can predict when this pandemic will end. It could be weeks or even months, and health experts are warning that even if the immediate health crisis abates in the summer, it could come back in the fall and winter and cause more havoc. Vaccines for it would not be ready by then, and while we may be a little better prepared for it than we are now, it could still exact a significant death toll. And, of course, the economic fallout from the pandemic is likely to persist a lot longer. Bottom line, for those of us lucky to live through this, life as we know it so far has evaporated.
The vast majority of us who are alive today have not experienced any historically significant period of trial and tribulation similar to this one. We have not lived through the Great Depression in the 1930s or the Second World War in the 1940s. Even India, the country where I come from, had its Independence Movement well before I was born, with its independence from the British finally coming in 1947. We grew up hearing inspiring stories of the revolutionaries who fought for India’s independence, but we never had to actually take part in that struggle. The closest I remember experiencing any kind of conflict were some sporadic blackouts during the India-Pakistan war in 1971 when I was a kid. In the US, of course, there was 9/11, which shocked all of us to the core, but the real brunt of the devastation was felt in New York City where it happened.
So really, most of us have not experienced any prolonged periods of devastation and suffering as a society. Of course, many of us have experienced individual hardships, injustices, and traumas, running through the entire gamut of problems human beings can experience. But given that as a society, we have almost been “pampered” until now, it might seem like we are finally getting our due. We have had it good for so long — the pendulum has now swung to the other direction.
More than anything, I feel bad for the younger generation. They are experiencing a prolonged global crisis so early on in their lives which is likely to completely reshape how we, as a society, function. It seems very likely that they will have to throw out the entire playbook that we have lived with so far and write an entirely new one going forward. We can only hope that, despite the hardships they will have to encounter, the new playbook will be much better — more humane, more just, and more equitable — than our current one.
