By Md Jahir Uddin
Nothing is more powerful than the human spirit. The human spirit refers to emotions, intellect, passions, patience, fears, and creativity. The world has witnessed so many dangerous events from its initiation and the human spirit has faced all the events boldly.
The world witnessed the deadly Spanish flu in 1918-20 and here nearly 500 million people were affected by it; 17-50 million people died from the deadly flu. It is said that the then time the medical science and technology were not developed; within short time, it was tough to make aware huge number of people. Despite this, the human spirit, contribution of doctors, social workers, humanitarian organization made it possible save the humankind from destruction.
About the power of the human spirit, C.C Scott says, “Human spirit is stronger than anything that can happen to it”. At present, the COVID-19 is silently attacking millions and it is being said that COVID-19 is much more dangerous than the Spanish Flu. Now like before, Human spirit is the main weapon to combat the deadly virus named Corona. Initially, the COVID-19 attacked Wuhan city in China and later it began to spread to the entire world; it is severely attacking the people and spreading fear all over the world.
Irrespective of the country economic condition, most of the countries failed to combat the virus successfully. Most of the countries are under tremendous health emergency. Until now in the world, total confirmed cases are 3,402,886 and deaths 239,653. In Bangladesh, total confirmed cases are 8,790 and deaths 175. The whole world is witnessing the destruction of COVID-19.
While the Prime Minister of Italy delivered a speech about the heinous attack of the epidemic, he said crying, “Definitely the economy of Italy will collapse; people sacrificed their lives in the 2nd world for the sake of the country, now the country will sacrifice its economy for protecting its people.”
At present the US is suffering most from the pathogen. No country was ready to face this pandemic and its faster infection creates a panic all over the world. Despite this, people are working to combat it by their intellect, creative, co-operation and humane activities.
The people of Wuhan show utmost patience by staying at home for nearly three months and this spirit helps the authority to take proper steps to solve it. People saw wreckage picture of Chinese doctors in social media and become the witness about the dedication of human spirit.
The human spirit is contagious and the dedication of the Chinese people has spread all over the world. Recently, the head of the state of Ireland returned to his previous medical profession to support coronavirus patients. Many doctors, police, administrative officers and journalists have risked being infected with the virus while serving the patients but they did not leave them; even they are working without proper personal protection equipment (PPE).
The Prime minister of the UK worked despite being positive in coronavirus. Here, one country is co-operating with other to face this pandemic by providing different medical equipment. Due to the lockdown, the food crisis arises in developed and underdeveloped countries. This food crisis is boldly being faced by the different humanitarian and voluntary organizations along with the government. Many volunteers are working at high risk and did not meet with families for a long time.
Besides, to make the people aware of the virus, creative content makers, media personalities, media workers or other writers developed different strategies on various social, electronic, and print media. These creative strategies are supporting the mass people's sentiments to understand the deadliest attack of the Coronavirus. The administration and disciplinary agencies are working hard to maintain the rules and regulations in this crisis as well as they are providing foods to the people in need.
On the other hand, the microbiologists and medical scientists all over the world are working restlessly by applying their intellect to develop its drugs and already developed some potential drugs to combat this pandemic. Previous success records of the medical scientists prevail that the world’s people might see the drugs of this unknown disease soon. There is no doubt that all human spirit is working together to combat the COVID-19 and definitely, eventually the coronavirus will concede defeat to the human spirit.
The writer is co-principal investigator at Bangladesh Center for Communication Program (BCCP)