Without meaning to take the side of Covid-19 ravaging many countries around the world, the epidemic has its unique positive, virtually concealed under its multiple negatives made familiar by the ever alert media. For a change, not exactly welcome, the columns of dailies don’t seem to have space for printing matters relating to other familiar issues such as corruption, crime, fraudulent deals of top corporate executives, horse-trading aimed at toppling Governments, road mishaps, unmanaged garbage, protests against various measures introduced by the Government, unedifying conduct of people’s elected representatives in different Legislative Bodies and so on, all happening with no signs of let up. Afflictions bugging human populations both globally and regionally that medical science has helped in remedying them or providing partial relief from agony to the victims, such as cancer have got sidelined by Coronavirus worldwide and Avian Flu in parts of Karnataka. Research teams in many countries are reportedly in an overdrive to create either an effective vaccine or drug as cure for the afflictions caused by the virus, but the wait for their success is likely to be longer than expected.
The factor of hygiene, both on home front and in public places, including hospitals overcrowded with sufferers of various illnesses and their kin, is being drummed up through publicity handouts, radio broadcasts, television telecasts and announcements in the streets through public address system, but the proportion of population not complying with the advisory is still very high.
