Virus threat to children
- The People's Chronicle Editorial :: May 27, 2021 -

DEATH of a 7-year-old girl on Tuesday morning due to Covid-19 is indeed one of the saddest episodes of the prevailing pandemic situation.

As per the case history, the kid girl was taken to RIMS Hospital on May 23 with complaints of abdominal pains and brought home after recovery only to be rushed to JNIMS the next day where she was tested and found positive for the infectious disease.

Though there was no hint of medical negligence at the hospital where she received necessary treatment, the source of her infection remains unclear, especially in view of no official report that her parents were also positive patients.

Moreover, discharge from RIMS implies that she too was not a vector. As such, one possible transmission route could be one of the hospitals where she was taken to for treatment.

For over a year since outbreak of the pandemic, healthcare personnel have been giving their all to serve every citizen in need but possibility of the work place of the life savers inadvertently transmitting the virus cannot be ruled out, particularly in the instant case of death of the seven years old girl child.

Both JNIMS and RIMS are the busiest hospitals at this juncture and have the largest numbers of Covid-19 patients in addition to conducting maximum number of Covid tests and reporting positive cases in hundreds.

Thus, possibility of the innocent girl contracting the virus, confirmed to be airborne, in one of the hospitals is quite high.

The girl's death also rings out the grim message that the second wave of the pandemic is a brutal one and will spare none if anybody commits the blunder of ignoring the clarion call of avoiding casual human interaction.

Unarguably, humans are inherently social and they have strong urge to communicate with other individuals.

Social scientists have been advocating that formation of social bonds is fundamental to both human survival and to guarantee a healthy cognitive, emotional and immune development.

Under normal circumstances, spatial distancing is unimaginable for the human kind contrary to which this Covid-19 period merits giving up the inherent tendencies and desire to seek physical contact, at-least till there is stability in the pandemic situation.

It is indeed distressing to observe children being denied the chance to turn their inquisitiveness into an invaluable knowledge accumulation process through spending quality time with their peers.

With schools shut down to ensure safety of the young children, their few options to spend the leisure hours include playing in the neighbourhood and sustaining the learning process.

Unfortunately, during the Covid-19 pandemic children are neither able to attend schools nor mingle with their peers.

Regardless of researchers demonstrating that the periods without school are associated with decreased physical activity, increased screen time, irregular sleep patterns and inappropriate dieting pattern among children and adolescents, the latter group uses the social media to connect among the peers while the younger lots get cranky when told to stay put inside the house or within the residential compound.

With the natural instincts curbed severely, children are undoubtedly among the worst hit section of the society.

Amid such a distressing environment, the only hope remaining is that the healthcare service providers will not get exhausted and intimidated by the crisis situation but continue their noble service of saving precious lives.