Fear kills more than the disease

Covid-19 has turned topsy-turvy the notion that positive is good and negative is bad. Serious as the situation is in the second wave of the virus attack, are we adding to its lethality by stressing too much on the negative? For vested interests and political reasons? It is time we called a halt to such purveying of pessimism, took a reality check and acted with hope, not fear?

Positive is good and negative is bad is what we all know. Covid-19 is an exception to this, as Covid-positive is bad and Covid-negative is good. The worst is when Covid positivity is supported by our negativity. Covid patients can successfully fight against this dreaded disease if their immune system is strong. The fear of the disease promotes negativity in us and the net result is that our immune system gets weak, and that becomes dangerous.

FEAR KILLS MORE

There is a story that once God of Death (Yamraj) was travelling to a city. A saint sitting on the outskirts of the city recognised him because of his divine power. He asked the God of Death about his visit to the city. Yamraj told him that 5000 persons are to die in that city in the coming month and that he was going to supervise their deaths. That city lost 50,000 lives instead of 5000 in the month. This made the saint furious and he asked the God of Death as to why he had lied to him. The God of Death modestly told him that he never lied to him, as only 5000 persons were destined to die, and the rest 45,000 persons died because of self-generated fear, on seeing deaths around them.

The moral of this story is that fear kills more than the actual disease. Fear, these days during the rapid second wave of Covid-19 is being caused by all-pervading pessimism. Our 24x7 news channels, social media and some leading international newspapers, who hate our country and our government are the main pessimism spreaders. The visuals of our cremations are big-money images, which are peddled with some eye-catching stories.

MIND-BODY CONNECT

Researches have shown that there is a connection between the mind and the body. A person walking in a dark and deserted lane, located in an unfamiliar part of the town is likely to develop sweaty palms and a pounding heartbeat, especially, if there are strange sounds. In the face of real or perceived danger, there is a fight or flee response of the body. Researchers have also found that the immune system in the body which fights infection gets directly affected due to fear, anxiety, emotion and stress. Pessimism pushes people more into this mess while optimism is the only driving force to take you out of this mess. Negative attitudes and feelings of helplessness and hopelessness can create chronic stress, which upsets the body’s hormone balance and damages the immune system. On the contrary, positive emotions build resilience to fight any physical or mental problem. Hopelessness or helplessness is born from pessimism.

PESSIMISM IN VOGUE?

Historian Deirdre Mccloskey says, “For reasons I have never understood, people like to hear that the world is going to hell”. She called it the ‘seduction of pessimism in a world where optimism is the most reasonable stance’. Pessimism always sounds smarter than optimism, as avoiding threats are taken more seriously than achieving gains. Pessimism also sounds like someone trying to help you. John Stuart Mill wrote, “I have observed that not the man who hopes when others despair but the man who despairs when others hope is admired by a large class of persons as a sage.”

Let us look into the present problem of the second wave of Covid-19 and the fear arising out of it. It cannot be denied that the problem is very serious. Our hospital beds and availability of oxygen are falling short of the increasing number of Covid-19 patients every day. The number of deaths is increasing every day. Countries the world over have faced the second wave and the third wave may not be far away. Since our country is a huge country with a huge population density, the adverse impact of this disease can be very high. The pessimistic propaganda by some vested interest groups and even by some well-meaning intellectuals have given a multiplier effect to the adversity of Covid-19. Our people get panicky the moment they are diagnosed from Covid-19, many avoid getting tested and suppress the symptoms at the initial stage and emerge as spreaders.

"Covid patients can successfully fight against this dreaded disease if their immune system is strong. The fear of the disease promotes negativity in us and the net result is that our immune system gets weak, and that becomes dangerous"

A WIDER PICTURE

Peddlers of pessimism ignore that our country’s death rate due to Covid-19 is the lowest in the world. The number of deaths per million of the population should be compared worldwide before creating panic. We are not an affluent country like the USA but the number of deaths of 2.20 lakh is almost one-third of the number of the over six lakh deaths in that country, even when our population is more than four times the population of the US. Our fatality rate is 1.13%, which is much less than the rate in the US, Britain and EU.

The panic not only accelerates the lowering of the immune system of our people but also harms us in other ways. There are increasing incidences of hoarding of basic drugs like Remdesivir and oxygen cylinders. The hoarding and blackmarketing of life-saving products add to the problems of our Covid-19 patients. The need of the hour is to spread optimism and teach our people how to defeat this disease. No media is showing the crowded graveyards in the US but our cremation grounds are shown in international newspapers. We should take such news items with a pinch of salt and concentrate on our well-being.

Corona is a pandemic. It does not see geographical borders. It does not discriminate between the rich and the poor. The people have to unite. Instead of undermining the government every moment, people should have faith in the government. Wars cannot be won unless the army has faith in the commander. At this hour, we should co-operate with the government and treat the government as a commander leading from the front in a war. The entire country is a battlefield and we constitute the army to fight Covid-19. The war is going to be more dangerous with new mutants coming up every day and the third wave at our doorstep.

GO FOR VAX!

We should all go for vaccination as that is the main weapon with us. We should all help each other and avoid being blackmarketers of life-saving products. We should all realise that we are not a rich country and that our government does not have enough resources. We have to fight the battle under the constraint of limited resources and hence, all of us have to chip in. We have to fight with a positive mind that we will win. We had defeated Covid-19 last year and we will defeat it again this year.

During the darkest hour of this century, there is something to feel good about. The world is with India. Many countries are sending equipment, oxygen and other necessities for us to fight Covid-19. The help coming from the world over is a friendly gesture and not an aid to a deprived country. India, earlier, had shown the way by sending manufactured vaccines to many countries as a friendly gesture. We want everyone to be happy, free from disease and be healthy.

The other good thing being seen is that our army, air force and navy have joined hands with the government to fight against Corona. Our big aircraft are flying in and out of India to reach oxygen tankers without any loss of time. Similarly, naval ships are doing the ferries to reach the medical cargo. Army hospitals have been opened for civilians. DRDO and the army are working to create additional hospital beds. It is very satisfying to see that big companies in the private sector are producing and diverting medical oxygen free of charge. Barring the Covid-19 vultures and vested interest groups with political reasons, the country is uniting.

INJECT HOPE

Things are bad but we need to be optimists and not pessimists. You will never see a rainbow if you are looking down. I will conclude this column by narrating about a brutal study at Harvard in the 1950s. Dr Curt Richter placed rats in a pool of water to test how long they could survive the water. On average they would give up and sink after 15 minutes. But right before they gave up due to exhaustion, the researchers would pull them out, dry them off, rest them for a few minutes and then put them back for a second round. In this second trial, how long do you think they lasted? Remember, they had just been swimming, only a few minutes ago. How long do you think? Another 15 minutes? 10 minutes? 5 minutes? No, 60 hours! That’s right, 60 hours of swimming. The conclusion drawn was that the rats BELIEVED that they would eventually be rescued, so they could push their bodies way past what they previously thought possible. If hope can cause exhausted rats to swim for that long, what could a belief in yourself and your abilities do for you? So, let us inject hope in ourselves, we will swim across and win.