Covid-19: Humanity’s modern cross

During the early stage of the outbreak of the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic last year, I had a number of friends and acquaintances who succumbed to the virus. At that time, our doctors and health system were ill-prepared to control the pandemic given scant knowledge of the virus’ mechanism, its transmissibility and the extent of its impact on internal organs. Consequently, there was confusion on the kind of medications or medical regimen that would effectively counter the debilitating effects of the virus, resulting in the deaths of many patients. Even the US president then, who dismissed the threat of Covid-19, was prescribing a drug that had been proven ineffective and possibly even more damaging than alleviating.

When a vaccine was developed toward the end of 2020, the world breathed a sigh of relief. But by that time, millions of human lives had already been lost in various countries of the world. However, the tragic circumstances of their passing were drowned by global concern and fear of the further spread of the virus, which could trigger more deaths around the world.