Jul 11, 2020

The COVID Impact

The lock-down season brought many changes in our lifestyle. We never imagined that swarms of traffic would become a thing of the past, that we will not eat for months from restaurants. The companies, giant and tiny,  promoted work from home for survival of business. Even with such an availability of manpower, we would live without maids and the other daily help. Nobody could have imagined it in this lifetime, but it happened. We do not yet know the end. The greatest pundits of the world say that vaccine would bring an end to this. Every pharmaceutical company, big and small, has entered this rat race to find the vaccine. For them, they found a gold mine, but with a secret key. Even if they decode that secret key and create a vaccine, will this ever end what has begun in 2020? Can this fear ever be swept away from hearts and minds of you, me and everybody else? Will we not doubt the air that we breathe in the future? The fear of another airborne infection will forever lurk outside our homes. No great minds or genius has a solution today as everybody is on a recovery mode even when they don’t yet know the entire impact of the COVID.

What do you think is the biggest impact of COVID to the human race? 

There are several positive points of lock-down for some would have explored their hobbies, have completed their long pending tasks, some would have explored novel business opportunities, but the biggest impact of COVID is yet to be realized.
Some months back, before lock down, I read this amazing book  Sapiens- A brief History of Mankind  by Yuval Noah Harari. It left an indelible impression on my mind and it answered the most prominent questions of our past 

  • How Sapiens could rule this world?

  • How did they eradicate the entire Neanderthal species, and  why other powerful and large animals could not claim the supremacy on this earth?

The book says it is our inherent ability to make larger groups that no other species can do or had done  in this world. One reason we, The Sapiens, dominated the earth is because of this inherent ability. 

"Neanderthals usually hunted alone or in small groups. Sapiens on the other hand, developed techniques that relied on cooperation between many dozens of individual, and perhaps even between different bands. Neanderthals could have beaten Sapiens in a one-on-one brawl, but probably, in a conflict of hundreds, Neanderthals wouldn't stand a chance." 

"Even our earlier predecessor Chimpanzee could not make and communicate in a group of more than ten. There would be a pandemonium if thousands of chimpanzee were allowed to watch a cricket match together in a stadium, but Sapiens could do that with unimaginable harmony."

Today, the COVID Effect is reducing our inherent ability to make groups. People can not make groups from fear of contracting the infection.  Does this mean it is the beginning of the end of human supremacy in this world? Let us assume for a time being that there are other viruses and airborne infections in this world, pardon me for being pessimistic but this is the need of the hour, the armies will not exist, the entire concept of mass gatherings will fade away. Slowly our inherent nature will change to not make larger groups, and then we would be tested on our individual muscle power rather than a group power. The entire food chain can become upside down as the most extreme effect of The COVID. 

Reiterating that the problem does not end with vaccine, but it is just a premonition of bigger evil for the entire human race. Nature is telling to change our ways of living, otherwise it will take its own course and it will give the crown of supremacy to the other species. No wonder if this could evolve the homo sapiens into another specie like neanderthals evolved into homo sapiens. It will not happen in a day or years even if it has to happen.It will not happen in our lifetime or our grand children’s lifetime because the evolution is a slow process and it can take a century or hundreds of years but this could be the beginning of such evolution as it is alleviating our most basic ability to create groups.

What we can do now?

Following nature’s laws is the  best we can do. We have to create renewable resources and have to utilize natural elements. We, being the supreme species, have to create space for lesser species otherwise nature will evolve by itself and no wonder it will give birth to the new evolved Sapien.

Survival of the fittest

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Amit Pattnaik said...

Hopefully a cure will be found soon enough (although I doubt if things will get back to normal any time soon). One good thing that has happened due to Corona is that quite a few of us who were earlier neglectful about our health, our environment, have realised our follies and are now much more serious. It was probably Nature's way of giving us a wake-up call.
Just that we need to continue with these habits that we have been following in the last 3 or 4 months, and not leave them as soon as a cure is found!

Chetan Maheshwari said...

Yeah, it is a wakeup call for all, but you know these new habits are similar to the visits to the temple in grief...Not many visit there in happiness...
Let us hope for the best