There was/is no pandemic

 What is this, everyone and her cousin shouting “pandemic”?

As a noun, the dictionary I consulted says, “an outbreak of pandemic disease”, and the adjective carries the meaning, “(of a disease) prevalent over the whole county or the world”.

The dictionary got it wrong as it focuses only on the normative sense. In my humble opinion, besides the normative sense, the word pandemic shalt carry the sense of action – that is, is the world tackling COVID–19 disease caused by the COVID-SARS-2 virus as a global issue? This makes the issue a moral imperative.

The answer is a resounding, “NO!” Every nation treats its citizens as though they are isolated from the citizens of other nations – there is no “pandemic” in their thinking.

Here I would like to mention an exchange, via email, that I had with an American friend of mine in the early days of COVID–19. He enquired why is it that India is showing cases in double digits while the US shows numbers hovering around low to mid five digits. My spontaneous response: “We are a poor country. We don’t jet around spreading COVID–19.”

My statement was endorsed by the data that became available soon after. The epicentres of COVID-19 in India were Mumbai and Delhi, the two airports handling a majority of air passengers. I do not know how Bengaluru escaped that group! It was the rich who brought COVID-19 (with some contributions from returnees from the Gulf). And it spread to the population not differentiating between the poor and the rich.

I hit the jackpot!

Shout globally and act locally. Yes, that is what we have witnessed over the past nearly two years.

Take any country and see what you can, on this score.

An American novelist is supposed to have said, “I can’t believe what you say, because I see what you do!”

That was very prescient of the novelist, which though he applied to his own times – mid 20^th century – the statement is applicable to the whole world in the third decade of the next century.

The US arranged for vaccines for its own population through possibly underhanded deals with pharmaceutical companies. It could, because it had the power. Germany, France, the Great Britain all did the same. Do you want to call it “Neo-colonialism”? Go ahead.

But there are add-ons to the countries who are practicing 21^st century colonialism – Mexico, Brazil, India ... Don’t say that India is “donating” doses to Afghanistan; just ask if there is no implicit, “I scratch your back and you, mine.”

The list almost reads like the UN list of countries!

The word, “pandemic,” must, in the context of the naturally extended meaning of the supposedly more enlightened times, include action-taken. This is not happening.

Hence, the disease has the risk of becoming endemic in all countries, but no pandemic.

I rest my case.

Raghuram Ekambaram