Tag: Covid19

July 19, 2021 /

Corona is both devastatingly resilient and deeply egalitarian. There is only one way out of this – beat it at its own game. We have to be more resilient and more egalitarian. More resilience will require more than vaccines; it will necessitate massive investment in healthcare where there is no paucity of drugs or oxygen or beds.

May 5, 2021 /

Ka jingpang ka long kaba shyrkhei, sngew kumban pluh ka shadem. Ngim dei ban kheiñ sting ia une u virus. Nga thoh ia kane ka artikl ryngkat ka oxygen mask ha khmut, artylli ki drip ha kti bad ka jingdap shadem (la shah mai ha i nurse ruh). Ngam lah ban thoh stet, kumta nga hap pynlut baroh shi sngi ban type ha ka mobile phone ia kane ka jingkyrpad ia ka jaitbynriew baieit jong nga: To da sumar, to iada ialade na une U COVID 19.

August 30, 2020 /

Kaei ka Eksodos? Ki riewstad Bible ki ong, ka wei ka dei ka jinglaitim ne jinglaitluid jong ki mraw Hebru na Ijipt bad ka jingiaid lyngba ka Duriaw Basaw. Ka ba ar pat, ka dei ka jingmih ne jingphet noh ki mraw Hebru na Ijipt hadien ka jingiap jong ki khun nyngkong shynrang. Ki don ruh ki riewstad kiba ong ba kane ka kynhun ki mraw kam dei tang ki Hebru hynrei ka kynthup ruh ia kiwei de ki Jaidbynriew kiba long mraw ha Ijipt.

June 4, 2020 /

There is a kind of myth making going on in the media that migrant workers are leaving cities for their love of home. The question is what choice these migrant workers had. They did not start their journey from the cities out of love for their homeland and relatives. They had to leave their homes in the cities. We conveniently/unconsciously switch this compulsion to leave cities for a phrase ‘love for the home’. Those who had some means to stay deferred their journey.
To say that migrant workers are leaving cities for their love of home/natives is to absolve ourselves from looking at harsh conditions which forced them out of city boundaries and left them walking in extreme conditions or undertaking arduous train journey.

May 17, 2020 /

I have heard many who claim to have many things growing in their garden but also have well manicured finger-nails. You may own a garden but might not be responsible for what grows in it because you have outsourced this task to a gardener. So you cannot claim to have grown anything and it does not make you a gardener. You can’t have those delicate nails and also be doing gardening. Gardening leaves its marks. On a hot sunny day you can turn a burnished red and your hands are always rough no matter what hand cream you use, including those that claim to work miracles. I take about two hours daily to weed, prune, rake and ensure that the roots of the plants are well looked after and the leaves are healthy. Every once in a while one also has to look for little pests that devour the leaves and cruelly kill them for the choice is between allowing the pest to thrive or your vegetables.

April 29, 2020 /

“We are frustrated by the hunger, disparity and isolation that is staring at us in the face. We have never seen such nakedness. My mother recently told me over the phone that ‘corona’ is the first word that comes to her mind when she wakes up and it brings along images of mass unemployment, persons stuck in abusive homes, hunger and death in isolation. She wakes up to this everyday. She is terrified. For herself and others. We all are.
Add to this the persecution of students, activists, scholars, doctors (persons any sane society would hold dear, especially in these times) by the state and its lackadaisical response to the woes of the most marginalized. It seems to us that this lockdown is the end of the world as we know it. And we are not able to ‘move’, mobilize, and protest to save it.
But, difficult as it is, we cannot let fear turn us into unscientific fools whose demands are based on ‘feelings’ and overlook facts. And whose facts are placed out of context in an argument. That is the work of those who walk towards the other direction from the center.”

April 21, 2020 /

The 2 country-wide lockdowns of 3 weeks each, one after another are unprecedented anywhere in the world. We all know of the distress caused to millions of migrant labourers but we can only wish that someone had planned the first lockdown much better! Maybe there were some compulsions that have been hidden from public domain! We may also like to be generous at such times and forgive those who took the decisions “for they knew not what they did!”

April 21, 2020 /

One of the key factors in tackling the spread of COVID-19 across the globe is testing. In South Korea, for example, mass testing has been used to try and quickly identify and isolate those with the disease. Testing is also vital to calculate accurate infection and survival rates – data that is critical for getting public safety measures right. And as this coronavirus continues to spread, people are being offered tests for sale, either at a high price from private clinics – or tests that are not officially approved, or perhaps even fake. So what tests are being used by health officials, how much do they really cost and what developments are there to come?

April 20, 2020 /

For those who will look for public health in this essay and see a political argument,  may do well to know that the social determinants of health are always amenable to good or bad politics. For example, to spend 24% of the annual budget on military and police while spending only 1.3% on public health measures is a political decision that makes us so vulnerable to public health emergencies. Similarly, responding to this Corona pandemic by listening to great clinicians instead of pubic health experts who understand rural distress and the social determinants of health is as much a political decision. Testing the members of one religious congregation and not the others’ meetings may also be political. Rudolf Virchow, the celebrated nineteenth century German physician wisely said, “Politics is nothing but medicine at a larger scale!”

April 7, 2020 /

While growing up, my relationship with death as a young child was shaped by these funerary customs and gatherings. I didn’t fear death. I saw it as a part of everyday life. A death in the community meant meeting scores of new people and catching up with friends. We were always taught to be respectful of the deceased person’s family’s grief but we also played our role in alleviating the sudden emptiness that comes with the death of a loved one.
In many ways, Khasi funerals become a celebration of a person’s life. People sit around and reminisce about the life of the person who has just left this earthly realm.

March 31, 2020 /

Last week two news reports circulated in the media which made many roll their eyes in annoyance, while a few marveled at the absurdity of it all: one of the reports announced that a new category of porn, variously called as ‘Coronavirus Porn’ and ‘Quarantine Porn’, has made its appearance on Pornhub and Xvideos with nearly 250 search results. In some of these videos, people are seen having sex wearing face masks, while in a few others, they are going down on their partner wearing yellow and green protective gear, attired like a healthcare worker. Some of these videos flash brazen and saucy titles such as: “MILF Gets Hardfucked in Quarantine Room’, leaving those high on moral scruples cringed…

March 31, 2020 /

There is lock down and then there is locking down the economy and the two are not the same! This is my attempt to explain the connections between the two.
Lockdown is an extreme form of social distancing – everyone stays at home and therefore is automatically not proximal to the others. The corollary is that by successfully doing so you bring the whole country and therefore the economy to a halt! The goal of this exercise as epidemiologists and other medical professionals will explain is to “flatten the curve.” And this in some ways is the first thing to notice: the name is really about flattening the curve and not eliminating the curve.

March 25, 2020 /

the domestic workers of Meghalaya also wanted to strongly join hands in the lock down that has been announced by the government but at the same time we are also burdened with a trauma of survival, we really need the support of the government to ensure that we have a free ration and basic income package so that we will be able to feed our children especially at this time of crisis.

March 23, 2020 /

It is only by social solidarity and by thinking beyond our individual safety that we can come out of this crisis with our social fabric intact. If communities together are not safe, no individual is safe. If the working classes, disadvantaged and poor are not able to take safety measures, the disease will reach everyone sooner or later. Assurance of minimum income support and assurance of good emergency response— both will help ensure that everyone, including the poor, can adopt social distancing.

We as a movement feel that the battle against COVID19 is not only to protect lives and but also livelihoods. All measures such as social distancing and lockdowns will fail if this relationship between lives and livelihoods is not acknowledged. Therefore we are suggesting following measures that can be a part of the people oriented strategy against the pandemic in Meghalaya.