Is death just a 'Number' ?

G Bidyasagar *

The doctors put my friend's brother on ventilator support with his Oxygen level rapidly dropping, tried everything they could, while my friend waited outside the ICU crying and praying to God to save his brother. But the prayers went unanswered and doctors lost another life to COVID-19, meanwhile down the hospital corridor, a clerical staff added a number to the daily fatalities tally.

My friend's brother had now become a 'Number'. Similar stories from other parts of the country too, one of my good friends lost everything when she lost her mother to COVID-19, helpless as she was, while her mother gasped for breath later succumbing to the dreaded virus. My friend's mother had now become a 'Number'.

The second wave of the pandemic has been showing no sign of respite in the State. Daily fatalities above 10 have become the new normal. Our morning starts with reports like 'Manipur reports X number of cases and Y number of fatalities' and the likes. To many of us death is just a number. New cases are just numbers and it meant nothing to us.

But to the people whose entire family has been affected by the virus, these numbers mean a lot. The psychological impact this has on family members of affected individuals is something I cannot fathom or any of us whose families have not been affected can understand.

The anxiety that kicks in after one of the family members test positive and waiting their turn to get the test done is an entirely different kind of battle, a battle the weak minds cannot fight alone and needs all the help they can get. Friends will come in handy during such days.

On that note, one should not be ashamed or have any hesitation to talk or come out if one has any doubt that one might be infected. They should talk to friends, doctors or with other help lines the Government has set-up for the very purpose. Keeping to ourselves, self confinement (mentally) will only worsen the psychological impact on oneself and that we don't want to happen.

But the worst mental battle is fought by those who have lost their loved ones to the pandemic. In most cases they helplessly watch as the doctors and medical staff do the best to save another precious life, but alas! They're not the all seeing one, they can do no more and our loved ones have now become a 'dead body' smeared with chemicals and bagged in body bags.

Life has now become a number. But to the family and their loved ones, it leaves them with a sudden shock from which they will take time to recover. With Government regulations to have all COVID-19 victims cremated by PPE clad team, the last rituals which usually serve as a last goodbye when someone dies are all skipped.

One cannot even have a last look at the lost one one last time. (Someone asked me the other day, was there any chance a dead body could spread COVID-19 ? I had no answer; I am no expert in Communicable Disease, my guess and research is as good as yours)

Paying tribute to the loved ones becomes something we do on the walls of our social media handles. People write RIP, give a sad react and that's it. To them death is just a 'Number'!

I so much as wish I could change the way people look at those who succumb to COVID-19 and talk to the families they left behind to cherish the memories of the lost ones.

Stigmatization and out casting people with COVID-19 or who have recovered from the virus will do no good for us, the virus is deadly and very communicable, no doubt about it, but showing some decency and talking with them, enquiring about their health, asking if they need anything, extending some moral support will go a long way in tackling the long term psychological impact and burden of the pandemic.

Death is not just a 'Number', it's a life lost, it's emotional, and it's everything to a family.

If you're reading this, and if you have lost someone, I so much as hope you wouldn't cry as you did yesterday, but cherish the memories of the days you shared, and live your life to the fullest, that's something they would have loved.