How ones’ irrational belief became a threat to the decimation of the human race?

Now the entire world is taken by the deadly novel disease called Coronavirus COVID 19 which started spreading from Wuhan province of China as its epicentre. Since then it started devastating the lives of humans in different parts of the world and now people across the countries are in deep grief and paranoia. Thus the virus was declared a pandemic by the WHO in the first week of March 2020.

Corona, it is the virus causing Acute Respiratory Syndrome, belongs to a family of viruses causing common cold recorded its first attack on humans this year. It has been said that corona is the animal to animal transmitted disease, it came to humans when a person tried to consume the virus-infected animal (Though it is a suspicion). Later that evolved as a disease which started to disseminate via humans.

Conservatism and corona

Chinese people are so superstitious and they believe consuming some food gives them good health and long life. Once I was astonished to watch a video in which a Chinese guy eating snake’s heart without boiling it, saying that gives him long life. I was wondering how conservative or superstitious he is.

The reason for the coronavirus outbreak is the conservative mindset of the people. People are changing and are getting civilized these days but the conservatism like superstitious beliefs are also prevailing till date. People eating raw food without cooking it properly by believing that gives them good health. But they won’t be knowing the consequences of uncooked food which may carry many antibodies. So the problem is not a virus but the people. We cannot stop the evolution of viruses or micro-organisms but we can avoid getting in contact with it. We are not insisting that we should not consume exotic or different food but we should know how to process that food and consume it safely.

After the disease started spreading, people should have acted smart, but they haven’t. Rather than quarantining themselves, people started travelling to other countries not for any serious business but for trivial works like spreading religion. Yes, the 7 cases reported in Telangana is because of those who came from Thailand to propagate their religion in India. One of whom contracted corona and that led to further dissemination. Is it really important in this difficult situation?

Yesterday people started clapping and gathering in masses to show their gratitude towards service providers (doctors, nurses, sanitary workers and other such service providers). Instead of doing it in their personal spaces, people started to do rallies. Here, what’s the point of being self-quarantined a whole day? People have to think before they act. Further the churches, mosque or temple whatever the place, people should stop gathering for mass prayers against corona. Indeed they can do the same at their home along with family members. It is the high time, people should be more prudent and act with their all senses to save the nation.

What is the importance of insisting people not to be conservative?

People are misled by many sources nowadays and they aren’t thinking enough because of the conservative demeanour. For eg. A group of people in North India started to propagate drinking Gau Mutra (cow’s urine) will increase immunity and stop spreading viruses. They organized a Gau Mutra Party and masses participated in that event and drunk the cow urine. Now, this event is worse than a Chinese guy eating a raw snake which was infected by the virus. Cow urine is already a waste getting out of the body, what if it has any virus or disease-causing microorganism in it? It only causes another severe epidemic disease that would lead to people to go on contracting and spreading life-threatening diseases which might turn as a demon to human existence.

Now the problem is people are so conservative to believe this. Since they believe the cow is so divine and worshipped as God, a guy used this opportunity to sell a glass of cow urine for ₹500 and got arrested by police. People should come out of this (conservative) disease and it is more dangerous than a virus.

Some people are insisting not to eat meat to get rid of diseases. This is again an example of how conservative people are. Here they fail to be rational. Eating meat doesn’t cause disease, eating it without proper processing does. We cannot stop doing something when someone got affected by doing it wrongly. Some people suggest using neem leaves and turmeric water as sanitizers. But there are no scientific proofs that they kill viruses. They are natural antioxidants that boost the immune system when consumed internally. We should approach everything rationally and should not believe things because that has been followed since a long time or the same has been followed by our ancestors.

Liberalism has been fighting the conservatism for centuries and couldn’t succeed. Trusting something needs a rational approach. This has been insisted from the ancient era. A legendary Tamil philosopher who gave the world epic literature called Thirukural, says when you hear something from someone know the rationality behind that. “Epporul yaryarvai ketpinum apporul meiporul kanbathu arivu”. And a well-known social reformer Thanthai Periyar once said, “When someone says something, when you read or listen to something or even when I say something, you shouldn’t believe that if it isn't trustable to your knowledge”

So people should be rational in every aspect of their life. Conservatism is a disease, being rational and getting liberated is the medicine. The human race is experiencing the worst time now and we are all in this together. Instead of spreading random rumours and making the people more paranoid, the best thing to do is spreading positivity and standing for each other. Along with that, everyone has the responsibility to be more vigil and prudent to make decisions that should not make the world to suffer. The people should be rational for their goodness and to the world at large.