Page 5 - Dream May 2020 English

COVID-19 SPECIAL
THE ENEMY
Where the virus infects
to be admitted to a hospital, but with due medical care, you recovered and discharged. I cannot re-infect you. I can no longer live in your body. The battle has tilted in your favour; it is time for me to look out a new abode.
Or perhaps you are malnourished or have other health issues like blood pressure, then your immune system is no match for me. I win. I continue to ravage your cells. Your immune system is further provoked. It escalates, and in an uncontrolled rage, it unleashes a 'cytokine storm' in a bid to eliminate me. It goes down with all
guns firing. Making no distinction of friend and foe, the white blood cells storm the lungs and destroy the tissue. The dead cells and fluids accumulate in the tiny alveolar sacs clogging it. It is the alveolar sacs that usually let the blood absorb oxygen. With your body depleted of oxygen supply one by one, your organs start to fail. Devoid of oxygen, your liver fails, and the toxins accumulate in your blood. Starved of oxygen, your brain cells begin to expire. You are sinking. I have no use for a dead host. It is time I look forward to a new host.
In either case, I need to look for a new host. I take your help. You too foolishly provide me with the lifeline.
In search of my next victim
I have been multiplying inside your body ever since I got a foothold. Eventually, I will produce 100 crore copies of myself, all crawling along your nasal passage, respiratory system and lungs. When you open your mouth to talk, the air passing through the moist lining of the upper throat creates tiny droplets. When you cough or sneeze small droplets jet out. I take a free ride. If you have not covered your nose and mouth, I waft invisibly into the air. If you had coughed on your hand, I settle there. A passer-by wading through the air droplets, an innocuous handshake is enough for me to find a new host. I
spread. I move from one to another. I engulf you all.
Perhaps you are intelligent. Knowing my ways, you cover your face with a simple mask, wash your hands regularly, I get little chance to circulate. I can't hop beyond one and a half metre. If I find no host that close, humanity wins. If the sick, who harbour me do not move about and spread my seed far and wide, chances that I find a next host is dim. Isolation, quarantine, lockdown all arrest my spread. You break the
chain. Unable to find a new host, I perish.
The virus transmits from human to human and also through clothes, utensils and furniture route. Simple mask, physical distancing and hand washing will prevent its spread to new host
Like Jean and Peter Medawar said, a virus is 'simply a piece of bad news wrapped up in protein'. I mindlessly copy myself with no aim or goal. But you humans are supposed to be intelligent. Knowing my ways, how I am, how I function, how I spread, how I cause damage to your cells, you can become knowledgeable. Knowledge is power. True knowledge sets you free.
Dr T.V. Venkateswaran is Scientist 'F' in Vigyan Prasar. Email: tvv@vigyanprasar.gov.in
33 dream2047/may2020