Unmasking the Virus

After almost three months of lockdown earlier on in the year we managed to slowly come out of the abyss we were in and stare with hope at the silver lining of the dark clouds that hung over us. Fastforward to almost four months later and as a nation we seem to be teetering on the brink of another Corona calamity. The hows and whys seem irrelevant at this moment and those that are happily engaging  in playing multiple innings of the blame game apportioning the responsibility on others need to stop and indulge in a bit of introspection.

United we stand divided we fall and what more urgent time than this to unite together in our battle against this dreaded virus.

Pre Minuwangoda debacle, how many of us can honestly hand on our hearts say that we followed the COVID-19 precautions to the tee? There you have it… as I suspected.. hardly anyone of us have been totally responsible. Instead we all took it too lightly. Instead of wearing our masks to cover our noses we had it swinging in gay abandon like a hammock underneath our chins. Walking into a supermarket or a shop some would ignore the washbasin and walk into the store cursorily offering their hand for a quick temperature check. Ignoring the large bottles of sanitiser these said people would happily proceed to wrap their digits around the plump tomatoes or finger the bandakka to see if they are tender.

How many of us are guilty of attending social events which had no social distancing and scant regard for washing hands and sanitising. Take for example the recently concluded Colombo Book Fair or even the musical festival which happened a few days ago. Hundreds if not thousands thronged to that event almost like sardines packed tightly in a can and ran the risk of catching or spreading the virus.

Instead of ganging up and apportioning blame on the super spreader, let us all make a collective effort and a promise to be more responsible citizens in the fight against Covid- 19. United we stand divided we fall and what more urgent time than this to unite together in our battle against this dreaded virus.