Usually we discuss trees and Miyawaki in this series. But this time, with due apologies, let me admit I wish to speak on a different topic. Viewers with exclusive taste in trees and Miyawaki, please excuse me this one time. For the last two weeks, I’ve been a COVID patient. I was declared COVID negative a few days back. Since April, I’ve been travelling throughout Kerala on business, largely on shooting schedules, in order to create advertisements for the Department of Health, free of cost. We could keep the infection at bay because we took all precautions – used sanitizers, avoided touching any surface unnecessarily, carried home-made food and water in flasks, ate inside the car, and so on.
Two weeks back, we had to make an urgent trip to Kasaragod. Maybe we contracted COVID from there or during our travel earlier. The trouble began with two of us having mild diarrhoea and flu-like symptoms. Immediately, we took the COVID test and went into quarantine, confining ourselves to this vacant house owned by a friend of mine. We tested positive, and nearly 10 days later, last Monday, a second test showed we were cured.
The reason for saying this is that there is a lot of fear about COVID among people all over the world. The main fear is that death is certain or that recovery is accompanied by grave health problems. True, we see people dying. The death rate due to COVID comes to 11/2 to 2 % of the population. My experience tells me that we need not live in dread. We only need to be vigilant and take adequate precautions. As you know, there is no medicine for Corona. We have had similar diseases before. Take the case of chicken pox, a disease that did not have a cure until nearly 15 years back. I myself had a very severe bout of chicken pox in 1984 or ’85, and spent 28 days in total isolation, taking rest and avoiding exertion.
I spent time tuning in to radio stations all over the world and listening to programmes. I followed a similar schedule during the COVID quarantine period, taking care to have healthy and hygienically-prepared food, doing steam inhalation three times a day with leaves of wild basil, camphor basil and Indian borage put in the boiling water, taking that medicinal concoction in the case of cough, and drinking plenty of hot water to avoid dehydration. The advantage of the quarantine was that, being a foodie, I started experimenting with various dishes. There were offers of help but we largely managed our own food requirements. So, in a sense, that led to a skill enhancement of sorts in these 15 days. My culinary skills improved by at least 30 %. Perhaps it is up to my wife and daughter to ratify my self-assessment.
The other things I did were catching up with the backlog of magazines and books, watching films on my tab, and also managing some of my professional responsibilities online. I describe this in such detail to let you know that with the spread of the pandemic, Kerala has witnessed a spike in suicide rates. I was myself approached by the personnel of the Department of Mental Health many times, and given assurance that they were on call if I needed emotional support. This is because there is a lot of fear among people about the disease. Such worries are unfounded.
We should take plenty of rest and take care of two things. One, avoid interacting with people in order to avoid spread of the infection; and two, keep away from heavy work. Besides taking rest, as we do during the time of any infection, we should keep our noses and mouths clean, and drink plenty of water. I myself suffered uneasiness only for half a day in the beginning. Therefore, there is no need to panic. Only make sure you take enough precautions. You can certainly face COVID with courage.