Now that we are back in the familiar python-like grip of panic, paranoia and the pandemic all over again, it may be pertinent to address some of the Corona mysteries this time around.
1. Clearly Omicron is more transmissible, but certainly far, far less lethal, than the deadly Delta carnage we had in March- June of 2021.
If Delta was like Hitler, Omicron is more like Boris Johnson: a fast-spreading moron with no capacity for a sucker-punch.
2. We must promise ourselves this:
That if the Omicron variant does not overwhelm hospitals, ventilators, and does not have a high kill- rate by Feb, then we must conclude that the virus has attenuated—it is becoming increasingly like the common flu and we need to get back to some pre-2019 level where everytime someone sneezed, we did not shut down a city, or the global economy.
We consciously must look at the kill-rate and not the kiss-rate of the virus.
3. Vaccination: Again the no-brainer.
Boosters or not, this is our best bet to minimize our chances of hospitalizations and deaths.
There is simply no argument against this.
We still have the religious mumbo-jumbo types who discredit vaccines (even though they take it in secret).
What a pathetic shame!!
4. South Africa, the country where all the Omicron fuss started, is on a dipping curve, and even in their worst- affected provinces, hospitalizations and deaths have been way lower than Delta.
So yes, we need to be vigilant, but not overly hysterical, and over-react by shutting down our economy unless the evidence of deaths, not infections, gets overwhelming.
5. How does China bloody well do it??
This is the one country that gifted it to us, but they have not had one wave after Wuhan.
And they shut cities down as fiercely as cloistered convents at the mention of two suspect cases.
Yet their economy thrives.
And they go on poking all their neighbours.
When we are a democracy, we end up bullying one another.
When you are a totalitarian regime, you control your population like sheep and go bully your neighbours instead.
China still remains the Covid mystery of our times.
6. On another note, there are a plethora of political viruses replicating in Goa.
Everyone I know is planning to contest the election to Save Goa.
Of our 15 lakh population, it has been confirmed to me by knowledgeable sources that 16 lakh people are planning to file their nominations.
In true Goan style, no one is interested in Saving Goa.
Everyone is busy saving themselves!!
7. Again I predict this grim prospect:
Every single money- bag worth his 2000-rupee note is going to get elected, and even if the BJP gets five seats, they will form the government.
Let us accept the fact that, as in World War ll Germany, Goa has already been bombed out.
There is nothing more to save, and our souls are so polluted, that saving our souls itself is not worth it.
We need some Marshall plan to reimagine and remake Goa.
How??
Don't ask me.
But if the youth of this state could lift their necks away from their smart- phone screens, it may help.
We old, buzzing twits with our fancy opinions, shamelessly clamoring for patronage and self preservation, have failed You big time.
So Covid may spare us eventually and disappear from our landscape and mindscape in the fullness of time.
But the viruses that will rob Goa of its brightest minds, destroy its spectacular fount of talent and pulverize our treasured heritage and history of centuries that is celebrated the world over, will continue unabated, unhindered—and indeed triumphant.
The truth, my dear people, is there is nothing left to save.
If we still have the energy, we will have to start the arduous task of rebuilding and reimagining Goa.
Maybe in a decade or two we will have PEOPLE who will elect such LEADERS to do the job.
For now, in 2022, we have PEOPLE who will surely elect LEADERS who are masters at the art of continuing the savage desecration of this blighted land—all in the name of DEVIL OPMENT.
Keep safe people!!
Goa’s end is near.
Hopefully a fresh beginning (not to be confused with a new Don) will appear on the horizon like a rainbow in a decade or two from the sheer mangled ruins of a civilization threatening to go extinct.