Covid diaries

Manu S. (@s_manu6314) writes today’s diary entry—

After three days I went out today to buy some vegetables. It is legal to go out for this purpose right now. I chose the evening because evenings are safer because of the police.

On the road there were countable people and bikes. First I headed to the fuel station and waited in line behind three others. The fuel station attendant asked me to wear a mask. I didn’t have one. He insisted that I wear one next time. He kept his distance from me, about three feet. Everyone looked at everyone else suspiciously while talking, even while stand next to one another and especially if they touched someone even by mistake.

I was wondering why the guy was making such a big deal about the mask because we were told to wear it only if we thought we had caught the virus. But maybe he didn’t know whether I caught it or not, and for his safety he was insistent.

Next I headed to the vegetable shop. There were some two people there too and there were boxes drawn three feet apart, so I stood inside one of the boxes. There too I was faced with suspicion. Then I realised society won’t be same ever again after this pandemic.

Even with the lockdown, infected cases will increase everyday until they find a vaccine. A lockdown alone is not going to work; people have to come out at least to buy supplies. The virus is spreading, attacking us one after another, secretively, every minute. Also, the serious decision of the government to lock down all non-essentials, and people, their education, travels, jobs etc., shows us nothing is more important than life itself.

Also, we cannot act much against nature’s decisions. We have to follow it whether we like it or not. Its decisions are unknown. This pandemic has showed us that nobody in the world can say what will happen next.

Let us talk about the police. During the ongoing quarantine, this profession is playing a key role that it never should have had to play. Ideally, people should have stayed home without any incentives but the guarantee of a continuance of normal life in all forms save outings big and small. But they have had to play a key role primarily to force people to stay home.

The famous Stanford prison experiment, conducted almost half-a-century ago, showed that the most innocent of minds when given a taste of power can take it overboard. While the Indian police force was not exactly brutal to the public violently and physically, they seem to have been given a taste for it and there is barely any indication that they will be willing to relinquish their newfound thirst for violent public disciplinary action once all this blows over.

However, it is only fair to point out that no all cops are alike. While some are disgracefully beating up doctors—despite sufficient evidence and identification—and should face disciplinary actions in courts themselves, others have come up with innovative methods to persuade people to stay home. Not all of these are equally effective, but their attempts deserve recognition nonetheless. From singing to flat dwellers and commuters on the street, to wearing silly-looking coronavirus-inspired helmets, to wielding microphones and reasoning with quarantine violators threatening to stop working altogether, the cops have been trying their best to persuade people to stay home.

While I appreciate the difficulty of a cop’s job, I do not think it justifies violence. And while I appreciate the desire to go out for basic supplies, I do not think there is enough reason in the world right now to justify why some people are violating quarantine just because they can. Everyone has lessons to learn.

I have never been against a religion out of bias. Indeed it is something I am quite proud of. But I also do not shy away from calling out a religion, when it is fair to do so, simply out of fear of being branded an extremist. This time round, a group of Islamic missionaries are squarely to blame for worsening the COVID-19 pandemic in India.

The Tablighi Jamaat is an group of muslims driven to encourage the practise of Islam exactly as it was practised during the time of the Prophet Mohammad. Despite the state issuing warnings and outright lockdown and quarantine laws—and despite everything that has been going on around the world all these days—this group (of about 200 men from across India and a bunch of other countries) met around mid-March at Delhi’s Nizamuddin Markaz and gave each other some SARS-Cov-2.

Now tens of people in several Indian states have tested positive for COVID-19 and the burden on the healthcare system and the ground workers rushing to detect contact and travel histories of these men has increased tenfold. This was a foolish move in the name of religion that could have been avoided—nay, should have been avoided. The news suggests these men are likely to be held legally accountable for their actions.

Nothing much going on today except that the people who were at the Tablighi Jamaat are being tracked, most are continuing to test positive, and our numbers are going up.

That said, an interesting video is making the rounds on YouTube today about that side of China which the Chinese government does not want the rest of the world to see. Sure, the title sounds like clickbait, but the video has a lot of substance and is worth watching.

There has long been a joke on India’s streets that the Chinese eat absolutely everything they can lay their hands on. Is it closer to the truth than any of us suspected, though?

Today the government released an app, Aarogya sethu, for ‘contact tracing’ COVID-19 victims. As an incredibly privacy conscious person I cannot bury the feeling I have deep inside that this app is simply going to be the first of many tracking and mining pathways that the government will set up under the cover of the ongoing crisis that it will liberally use, possibly with ill intentions, in the coming days long after this crisis has passed us.

The app requires permissions for bluetooth access (a popular method of indirect location tracking), full-time location tracking and the user’s phone number (also usable for location tracking besides individual profiling). The app claims all data is stored on your device and that only aggregate data is shared with the government. This is as yet unverified and in all likelihood will remain that way since the app has not been open sourced and public security auditing is out of the question.

Manu S. (@s_manu6314) writes today’s diary entry—

News of COVID-19 started gaining popularity in January this year; it got more attention and birthed fear in February 2020; seriousness about the virus increased in India in March 2020 and that too after the nationwide lockdown began.

After eight days of lockdown, fear about the virus is gradually decreasing. People are coming out of their homes now and then to buy, play, talk to neighbours etc. Also, the tight security of the police is disappearing. At my home too, the more the virus is in the news, involved in our daily lives, fear is gradually decreasing.

People’s desire for freedom is demanding that they view this practically rather than just look at the deaths of people around the world and sit back in fear. Even though the cases are increasing, people are calming down and starting to follow the WHO guidelines for taking precautions. They are not falling for fake news as much. Ultimately, our desire for freedom is leading us towards taking proper precautions and adjusting to this pandemic at all costs.

The Prime Minister called on the people of India to turn on their flashlights or light lamps and turn off all lights at home for nine minutes at 9 pm this Sunday (two days hence). His supporters are rushing to understand why he would demand this of the people of India at this point, while his detractors seem to have given up hope of India coming out of this crisis in one piece. It is hard to be a spectator to plays of stupidity.

There is no news today.