Covid-19 Pandemic by New Corona Virus: What Possible Errors We Did for it to Happen?

Covid-19 pandemic threat caused by the New Corona Virus has already caused a panic response from almost all governmental authorities. The governments of almost all countries have forced economic shut downs and stay@home orders for weeks now. Never in our life we have seen such a situation in which the human activities have come to a stand still like this for weeks!

We the people of this earth are either facing sickness and death by the virus or untold miseries caused by new rules ordered by the governmental authorities globally. Our worries keep increasing because we are not sure of what's going to happen next!

Many are also worrying and thinking about the possible causes of such a thing to happen now. I too keep thinking. I have come across some reasons for this to happen. It is based on my logical reasoning. 

The inputs for deducing these are based on some information that I gained in the past from my involvement in the development of micro-organisms for some difficult industrial use. Besides, some knowledge pieces I gained from the Urantia Book-the great book about which I had written in several of my blog articles in this site- have also provided valuable clues.

I very well know that in the present world order, independent individual opinions do not get much attention or value. 

Yet I dare to write and publish this blog article in this blog site 'for whomsoever it might be of interest or concern'!

The following are what I have to say in this.

The Novel Corona Virus with its adversary features has come into existence because some existing corona viruses have undergone some rapid haphazard environmental changes or mutations due to certain errors that we humans have done in the recent past knowingly or unknowingly!

Micro-organisms are the first evolutionary step in the development of life on earth. According to the Urantia Book, it is not an accidental happening, but something purposefully done by the invisible agencies of God, the source of life and energy in the universe. 

The method of creation of micro cells intermediary between living and non-living matter, such as the viruses and the single plant cells such as bacteria, is a long process adopted for gradual controlled evolutionary progress towards the creation of higher material living beings such as plants, animals and later humans by certain agencies of the Universal Creator. 

In other words, creation is not a magical process, but a complex evolutionary process appropriately controlled by several invisible agencies of God. 

The ultimate aim of this controlled evolution is for the creation of intelligent life, in any evolutionary planet anywhere in the universe, similar to  human beings of earth. Living beings similar to humans are special material creatures because they possess certain mind abilities to know the invisible presence of  God that enable them to get transformed to unique universe personalities with endless life after their material life ends. All humans are potentially capable of acquiring endless living in the universe. To achieve that humans have to follow divine rules of the universe. 

Divine agencies supervising controlled evolutionary progress in a material world like earth stop their periodic interventions the moment a few human beings with mind power to realize the invisible presence of  God come into existence.

All living forms made of simple or complex material cells, are bound to undergo the  birth and death processes of evolutionary development. Once a living specie comes in to existence, its further material progress happens more or less independently without the help of the divine agencies. So all material species once created by controlled evolution retain their features for several generations without much change. However, they do undergo life adaptations or permanent extinction depending on the environment. Life adaptations take place due to genetic permutations and combinations that come into effect through certain inbuilt biologic reproductive mechanisms. Such changes in higher animals such as humans happen over centuries because their life span is in the order of decades while it is relatively short for lower end micro-organisms such as viruses and bacteria that have life spans of only days. 

Thus it is possible for viruses and bacteria to get modified with marked differences in their behavior in a short time when their living environment changes either naturally or artificially in laboratories. These micro organisms, just as plants and animals, are all useful for sustenance of life on earth or any such planet. However, all species including humans can cause harm either to themselves or to others in certain conditions. That's how evolutionary material life in several material worlds of the universe are planned. At the same time the highest form of material life, the humans are provided with intelligence and wisdom to tackle all adverse situations, provided they use their God-given abilities judiciously and patiently. Unfortunately, most people on earth are either lazy or too impatient to use their intelligence properly. 

Humans can chose any decisions in their life because they are vested with free will. That is the ability to chose any path, right or wrong. The divine mandate is that human free will mind is not to be interfered and every individual make decisions in life according to their own sweet will. They face adverse consequences or benefits accordingly. Most of us therefore make errors in life deviating from the right path either individually or collectively. Since we are social beings, the consequences of our erroneous decisions either in the past or present affect not only the erring ones but also others around.

Humans being the highly intelligent material beings on our world, undoubtedly are provided with the power of making this world the best as any heavenly worlds in the universe or as  poorly managed dwelling places with all kinds of problems affecting every one. In a way, humans keep getting too many opportunities to know good and bad, by life experiences with ample opportunities for enhancing wisdom. Trials and tribulations keep transforming many human beings to enhance their capabilities while many others may feel defeated and hopeless. The most important thing that wise humans indirectly learn in this process of material life is about the existence of God, the Universal Source of everything in the universe and the development of faith in the plans and providence of God. Unfortunately, several not so wise humans do reject the concept of God due to the same life challenges on earth!

I remember a first time project that I had been entrusted a couple of decades ago in the largest industrial organization of India at that time- the Bhilai Steel Plant owned by Steel Authority of India- where I worked as a chemical engineer. It was to find out a way to develop a suitable process plant for effectively treating and reusing effluent water coming out from its coal processing plants. At that time this waste water, known in the integrated iron and steel industry of the world as the phenolic waste water, was a very difficult and poisonous waste water having no known method for effective treatment. For steel industry technologists world over,  managing this waste water and mitigating the environmental hazards it posed was a big challenge.

When I was entrusted this task, I hardly knew any method to solve this problem. But I had known some technical literature about the possible use of micro-organisms such as bacteria in laboratory scales elsewhere where people had undertaken experiments to transform normally available bacteria in to special hardcore bacteria that can use even the worst kind of chemicals as its food for metabolism. In other words, phenolic chemical compounds that are used to kill bacteria can be used as a nutrient to bacterial species to grow and survive, provided we could develop such kind of bacteria from normal bacteria by a process called bacterial culture development. It is a method by which normal bacteria are exposed in a step by step manner to adverse environments thereby developing a generation of bacteria that can thrive on such an environment. This takes many generations of bacteria but its not a big time frame for us, humans. 

I used this technique in setting up a large Phenolic Effluent Treatment Plant in Bhilai Steel Plant some time in 1992 that happened to be the first such plant in the world to successfully employ cultured bacteria for that purpose in integrated steel plants.

While that plant continued in operation those managing it learnt about adverse mutation problems of micro organisms and the difficulties it posed to achieve the end results favorably. Sometimes, improper management of the bacteriological processes caused the processes going adverse and out of controls.

If we look around, it is not difficult to understand this. It happens everywhere, not only with micro-organisms but also with all living organisms. When children are reared in haphazard manner, they turn out to be difficult to manage individuals posing threat to the society. Even a good breed of puppy when reared on the street in an adverse environment can lead to the development of a street dog having bad nature.

Humans being entrusted with the control and management of the visible material realm of this world by our invisible divine masters, we need to do all our acts in a responsible manner while enjoying our independence and freedom of choices. If we make mistakes, we have to face the consequences. Often we learn to overcome the consequences quickly, some times we appear helpless for some longer period of time.

You may now understand what I stated in the beginning. The new corona virus causing Covid-19 is our own creation. It may be accidental or it may be without our knowledge. But some of our errors in our acts in the past either individually or collectively have caused some haphazard environmental changes to some of the existing viruses that created the new corona virus with changed behavior. And now that virus has developed a method that it can get in and survive in human bodies in a peculiar manner and even ruin our physical bodies for some time till we find a way to tackle it.

What are the possible errors that we as a collective has done for such a virus to develop? What are those things that humans have done in the near past that caused previously known viruses that caused manageable diseases to new mutational varieties having such dreadful properties that is threatening human life on this planet?

In my opinion, humans in their ambition and eagerness for a fast developing world has overlooked certain aspects that gave disease causing micro-organisms (pathogens including bacteria, viruses, etc). Our priorities have been faster economic growth and high profit making businesses.

In our enthusiasm for faster development, we adopted and promoted international trade and travel. It encouraged people with differing habits and cultures to meet and intermingle too frequently. It caused viruses from one individual in one location to change its environment in a haphazard manner too quickly without we even taking note.

We developed our cities without proper thinking. We allowed mega cities to grow uncontrollable manner without even bothering to develop the required essential infrastructure such as safe water supply, safe waste water management systems, adequate solid waste management systems, air pollution control, clean water ways, etc.

We allowed cities to grow exponentially in a concentrated manner with populations more than several millions. We caused our low income city dwellers to live in congested slums and congested small high rise apartments with no adequate space or air circulation. The viruses got ample opportunities to jump from one person to another all living in harsh hygienic conditions causing them to develop harsher qualities of survival.

The Urantia book indicates that cities with more than a million population is not a wise thing to happen. It also indicates that human families to live in small living spaces not a wise thing to happen. It advocates a house for a family to have some free space around it. It also says mingling of differing racial communities to be done cautiously and slowly. Too fast a thing can cause accidents of time! 

It is not very difficult to understand these. Overcrowding anywhere causes problems. Pathogenic micro-organisms that survive on larger organisms can spread and mutate when people live too closely and move too often.

The solution, therefore lies in our economic planning by our governments.

It's time that we discourage mega cities. Concentrations of human settlements without adequate infrastructure should not happen. Each and every human family has a right for some minimum shelter and free land space around it- the more the better. It avoids spread and survival of germs.

We hope to develop vaccines and medicines to destroy new corona virus in the immediate future to alleviate the present pandemic. But that is not the solution. Whether we do it or not, other viruses will develop in the future causing much more severe pandemics.

We need to use our wisdom faculties properly.

Our errors cause problems to every one. It is not very difficult. We should learn to be wise in our acts and deeds.

Preventing Collapse of Economy During Covid-19 Pandemic: Some Suggestions to Authorities

How Covid-19 has become an economic threat?

The deadly pandemic, Corona Virus Disease or Covid-19 in short, caused by the New Corona Virus first detected in Wuhan, China sometime in December 2019, has for the first time rendered all governments of the world helpless and without any immediate solutions to effectively control the spread of the disease. 

The new corona virus is too infectious and an infected individual even without any outward disease symptoms can easily infect others. Researchers have found that the virus spreads from the body fluids such as saliva, phlegm, mucus, etc that comes out from an infected individual during cough, sneeze, spit, etc and can remain in the air for a few minutes and on some moist surfaces for even a couple of days. The virus enters a new person through mouth, nose and eyes. Once the virus enters a new person the person is capable of transmission to others. However, the newly infected person develops symptoms of the disease after about 14 days only. The disease starts as common cold with the person experiencing headache, body pain, fever, difficulty to breath, cough, sneezing etc gradually and within a few days, in some cases become very severe with severe lung infection requiring intensive care with ventilator aid for breathing. For the majority people, the disease cures in another about 2 weeks and by this time the body becomes resistant to the virus and the person becomes corona negative. However, it has been now observed that about 1-13% infected people can succumb to the disease.

The pandemic has no effective medicines to treat as of now. Neither has it any vaccine that prevent its spread at present. Efforts to find medicines for its effective treatment and vaccines for preventing its spread are going on in different nations on a war footing. However, there is no surety of when those things become globally available.

All these things have made Covid-19 a new life threatening challenge to all governments and authorities of the world. The most developed nations of the world such as the USA, Italy, France, Spain, Germany, UK, etc are presently the worst sufferers due to this disease. 

Interested readers can find facts about Covid-19 pandemic by clicking the following links:

Latest worldwide statistics of infection, cure and deaths by Google. 

Track Corona Live 

There is hardly any nation now that has not been affected by this viral global epidemic except a few small island nations.

Fortunately, there exists laboratory testing methods to test the presence of corona virus in a person, though they are costly and time consuming. However rapid tests that are less expensive and quicker have also been developed and are made available in many countries.

Medical experts and virus researchers advice several measures for preventing the spread of the virus and the deadly disease. Forceful stay@home instructions coupled with full or partial economic shutdowns have been already implemented by most nations of the world now to prevent the virus from spreading at geometric progression rates. The world has never seen such a mass scale shutdown of human activities in its known history so far.

For the first time in the modern history of our world, all public transportation by all means have come to a stand still now. All religious gatherings in churches, mosques, temples and prayer halls are prevented. Excepting a few essential shops, all shopping centers, markets, etc are closed. Cities all over the world are practically deserted. No one living now has ever seen such a thing before!

The economic shut downs have been forced upon by the governments as a possible method to prevent the spread of the virus to uncontrollable levels. None of the governments had the time to think and implement more effective and practical methods. These steps, though have been thought of helpful in preventing the quick spread of the disease, have invariably also caused innumerable human miseries to thousands of people. As forceful shutdowns have been implemented for long duration in a very short notice, thousands of people got stranded worldwide without any means of getting back to their homes. 

Almost all economic activities have almost come to a standstill. Though the governments are working hard to keep essential food and medicine supplies intact, it cannot be gauged as foolproof.

The economic shutdowns in many nations and places are on for more than two weeks now. Many authorities are contemplating extending the shutdowns further as Covid-19 has not come under any effective control so far. The infection and deaths are slowly rising!

Unfortunately, no one has come up with any other effective method other than economic shut down to tackle the corona virus, so far.

Under the present situation, there is no doubt, the measures adopted by the governments together with the pandemic have crippled the national and world economies to such levels than any one can think of. If the blanket economic shutdowns are forced ahead, billions of people in this world are destined to die of either Covid or starvation in the near future.

What can be done to prevent the collapse of the economy?

Whether Covid-19 is effectively reined by invention of effective medical methods or not, practical administrative methods with due thoughts need to be in place to prevent the economies to collapse to cause greater human miseries than that by the pandemic itself.

In other words, thoughtless shutdowns has to be ended and economic activities with effective safeguards must go hand in hand with other pandemic prevention activities.

Being a retired technocrat who had experienced handling of unforeseen emergency situations in large organizations in the past, though not of this kind, I feel that our experienced professionals in the government service can find effective methods of running the economy concurrently with steps of preventing corona virus spread, provided they are given time to think and plan properly.

My suggestions to the authorities are a few as given below:

1. Let not the police to create fear and panic in the society by over enthusiastic forcing of stay@home and economic shut downs. Let them be instructed to be logical in their acts of preventing crowd formation anywhere. Let them not terrorize individual citizens and families who are outside their residences moving or standing peacefully who have taken all practical steps to prevent virus infection such as safe distancing, wearing masks and the like.

2. Let all business organizations to do their respective business activities after they work out amendments in individual standard operating practices for all work procedures taking care of corona virus infection prevention strictly. Let the business organisation be held responsible for any spread of virus in their workforce attributable to unsafe work practices.

3. Let the authorities allow all loading, unloading and transport of all goods by all transport means by taking due precautions while doing these activities. Let the authorities approve and monitor standard operating practices for safe goods handling on a case to case basis as prepared by professional experts.

4. Let online retailers and their delivery associates do their jobs according to approved safe operating practices.

5. Let production centers, factories and service providers be allowed to function after implementing safe operating practices.

6. Let the authorities examine, approve and monitor the safe operating practices of all economic activities in their respective jurisdiction.

7. Let the authorities take steps to avoid all kinds of crowd formation any where including religious or entertainment venues.

8. Let public and private transports like commercial flights, trains, buses, trucks, ships etc be allowed to function with due care in sanitation and preventing crowding and social contacting in a restrictive manner as per well defined procedures. Let the fares be raised during the restrictive period to take care of the economic viability.

9. Let hospitals be segregated for infectious and non infectious diseases by carefully modifying hospital management systems of all health care facilities. Let all healthcare facilities be periodically checked for corona virus infections.

10. Quarantine all infected and possibly infected individuals strictly either at their homes or at specified medical facilities till they are certified negative for corona virus.

11. Let currency and cash transactions be strictly curtailed to the minimum possible levels. Let money transactions be through contact less digital payment methods like Paytm or internet banking where need for handling currency of cards or public machines are totally avoided. Authorities to make rules for such payment methods simpler by modifying their respective KYC norms etc to practically possible levels instead of the stringent impractical methods as existing at present (e.g. requirements of physical verification of documents should be dispensed with)

12. All employees who can do their work through internet and by telephone by sitting at home should be allowed to do so by all organisations.

13. All construction activities must be allowed by taking due precautions in people to people contacts.

14. All agricultural activities must be allowed by properly educating the people about safe practices.

15. On line medical consultancy and medicine supply should be encouraged and implemented.

16. All organisations including governmental may be allowed to cut salaries of their top paid employees who draw more than five times the emoluments of their lowest paid employee appropriately if the organization is financially constrained. In a similar way governments may think of reducing highly paid pensions and enhance the pensions of people who avail very low pensions not sufficient to make a living.

17. Governments to allow all business houses with tax arrears to pay those later in easy installments in case the financial position of the firm or company has deteriorated due to covid-19 shut down.

18. Governments should allow banks and financial institutions to allow moratorium on loan re-payments to individuals and firms on a case to case basis in case the individual or firm is constrained financially due to covid-19 related shut downs or job loss.

19. Governments should allow financial grants or loans to business firms that are willing to restart the lost businesses on account of the shut downs.

There could be many more such things that the authorities can think and implement to overcome the economic collapse on account of the present pandemic emergency. 

What I wanted to highlight is the importance of eliminating panic measures without due thinking by the authorities.

Even a vehicle when braked suddenly without due care and thinking can cause much destruction and havoc even when it is done to save a life!