Before Covid-19 lockdown began...

Everywhere it's panic-buying during this pandemic. All the countries are seeing it and this has been triggered due to unprecedented number of false/fake news being circulated. Thanks to easy access of social media even to the anti-social elements. Yes 'anti-social' is the word I am using to describe them as these pricks feed on the anarchy they have created in the society. And of course in the minds of the fools of the society. You will be surprised to know that fools comprise a major chunk of the society we live in and they are the first to fall prey to the anti-socials. These fools in turn spread this anarchy among the rest in the society. Only a handful of people with basic common sense are able to control their mind in this chaos.

 An isle of empty shelves in a popular store

This instability in the society was visible few days 

before all the countries of the world slowly started to realise that a lockdown was the necessity of the hour. The local administrations had not even completed their declarations of lockdown that panic buying had already led to stores, malls, outlets seeing their shelves go empty within hours of opening their stores. Everyone remembers that 'Toilet-Paper Rush' of March 2020.

To the buyers of toilet paper during that mad rush-"Have you managed to build your Toilet Paper Castles? Or were you still a few toilet-rolls short?".

Jokes apart, these kinds of localised incidents should invoke our inner self into asking ourselves why are we doing this? Anyway one day this stock will come to an end if production of goods stop altogether and in case production resumes we will definitely get to buy or get our essentials later-on as well. So why this panic-buying.

Well this was on the social issue which was visible across the globe. I can't help but point out this line by the antagonist(The Joker) of the movie- "The Dark Knight" when he says-"“Nobody panics when things go “according to plan”. Even if the plan is horrifying!” “‎"Introduce a little anarchy. Upset the established order, and everything becomes chaos."

Testing times are when we as human get chance to show what makes us different from other creations of this universe-our 'humanity'. When all the dust settles we will have only each other to depend on.

However I would also like to point out both not getting yourself suitably prepared during this lockdown hour is also not something to be proud of. Hence we should first chalk out our plan of action during these pandemic times where the best options are to stay at home, socially isolated to curb the spread of this infection. Social isolation although is not an answer to this infection but it can help break the chain of people infecting one another and reduce the number of reported cases per day. Just imagine, had the first person to get this disease followed social isolation till he got cured, this disease would not have set its ugly feet across the world altogether. They say- 'Prevention is better than cure'. But we were unable to prevent it and now all are awaiting cure/vaccine for this infection.

While following home stay, social distancing we also need to take care that we have only required stock of emergency supplies like medicines,food etc by working on a plan as to how many days we need to stay at home till the next visit to store to get our essentials again. 

As we know local administration will keep essential businesses and services open so that people don't suffer more. So we can plan thrice-a-month or every 10 days visits to these stores for restocking our essentials. We should not keep fruits and vegetables for more than 10 days even in refrigerator. Hence once we finish up those we can identify a person within the family to go to the market and get home the requirements. He must wear a proper mask to cover his nose & mouth when he is outdoors. Once he is back from outdoors it is imperative that he cleans all the materials he got from outside. Vegetables/fruits/other unpacked fresh food items should be washed in warm water mixed with salt and packed items should be washed with disinfectants. The said person needs to take bath with soap and warm water and wash his/her clothes which they wore when visiting the stores with detergent and antiseptic liquid. Although these are not full-proof steps to prevent the virus it still prevents the spread of infection to a large extent.

                                       

A shopper with nose mask on.

Lets not stumble during this hour of crisis and be together(not holding hands of course). Only a few precautionary steps if practised religiously will help us win this global war against this pandemic. We do have some people out there who won't take this seriously but please lets not be like them. We should instead help them understand the gravity of the situation and at the same time not create panic. Remember only together can we win this, as only one unattended infected person is needed to spread this like wild-fire which we all have come to realise since the last few months.

You guys might have other views in addition to what I have shared. Do comment what are your views as well. Feel free to add anything helpful which I might have missed. 

Take Care. Be Healthy.Thank you all. Until next time.