They worried for me, now I worry for them

A month or two ago I could feel the pain and concern every time I got a call from home. Seeing the news about the novel coronavirus outbreak in China, my parents, wife and kid and scores of well-wishers worried for my safety.

They asked if I could take leave and return home for a while. Today, as China's relentless fight against the virus seems to have borne fruit and the news now is about how the virus is spreading elsewhere, it is I who wish my well-wishers were here and not there.

Chinese authorities here have adopted the containment policy in response to the epidemic. For more than a month, since Jan 23, I have stepped out and taken long walks, during which I came across not more than five or six faces in the capital of the world's most populated country.

I remember back home even a curfew did not always translate into a blanket ban on hitting the streets. In Cuttack, where I was born, any number of people would amble out from their lanes all the way to the main road to check if they could make peace with the on-duty cops and have some morning tea and snacks from an equally defiant hawker.

The defiance hasn't died down even now. A woman who arrived in the Indian city of Bangalore from Europe with her husband a few days ago and was quarantined when her husband tested positive for the novel coronavirus, reportedly escaped from home, flew over 1,700 kilometers to New Delhi and then traveled another 195 km by train to be with her parents in Agra. The authorities had to use force to separate her from her eight family members and isolate her when she too tested positive for the virus. It is hoped that the authorities can now reach out to all her fellow passengers for screening.

In another case, an Irishman who ran a high temperature upon landing in the east Indian city of Bhubaneswar was asked to get himself admitted to a hospital for more tests, but he preferred to isolate himself at a hotel instead. Another report said a man who arrived in New Delhi from Italy and displayed no symptoms of the virus, came in contact with 813 people before his fever showed up. In fact, his mother was the second person to succumb to the virus in India. An editorial in an Indian newspaper said there was no reason to panic as the novel coronavirus has a lower mortality rate than the 2003 severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) or the latter-day Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS).

It said that the former spread to 29 countries and killed nearly a 1,000 people, but infected only three Indians who recovered quickly. And MERS didn't even reach the country. Indians, the editorial said, have one of the toughest immune systems in the world. All the 327 Indians evacuated from Wuhan, Hubei province, were free of infection, it said. It also advised against wasting money on buying masks, which were no shield against a virus that spreads via surfaces. Besides, masks can make one feel uncomfortable and pulling it down regularly can expose one to the contagion.

However, the editorial asked that everyone wash their hands regularly, adding that most Indians did it anyway before a meal. A cousin back home equated me with a Holocaust survivor and asked me for advice, but most friends thought I was being over-cautious when I suggested they wash their hands more often and wipe everything they touched daily－like light switches, refrigerator doors, cellphones－with an alcohol-dipped towel."Just chill!" said a friend. He said most infections from cold countries lost steam when they landed in hot and humid India. It makes no difference to him that Singapore wasn't particularly a cold country. I would have gone on and on debating with him, but he had me stumped when he said: "We are the people who pick up cricket balls from dirty drains and continue playing the game. Nothing will happen to us."

Before I could recover from that, I came across a video, now viral, showing a Union minister in India leading monks and the Chinese consul general in Mumbai to chant "Corona go, corona go!"All I could say, sotto voce, was Amen!