Disturbing daily death count : Boost immunity
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: June 05, 2021 -

The death count is deeply disturbing. And it is climbing.

Obvious that the death count cannot be understood sans the rising number of positive cases, but ultimately it is the death which can and will have the deepest impact on the bereaved family and the State as a whole.

Even as this commentary is being penned down, the number of death had climbed by 14 more to take the tally to 863 and the number of positive cases to 53,690 adding 791 more.

The exact behaviour of the virus is still a mystery to science and human understanding but it is to be noted that medical practitioners around the world are in agreement that there is as yet no medicine to effectively fight the virus once it enters the human body via the respiratory tract leaving the fight to the body's immune system.

This is the reason why there was a rush to the drug store to get hold of vitamin tablets which are understood to boost one's immune system when the virus first landed here in 2020.

The question therefore is what one should do to boost one's immune system. Apart from the call to keep oneself physically fit, the medical world may go further to study how the virus can be defeated before it reaches the second or third stage.

From the observations made so far by doctors here, time it seems is of prime essence in fighting the virus. This is where it may become very important to keep a timeline of when the symptoms first started showing such as sore throat, dry cough, loss of smell, fatigueness, etc.

It is generally understood that symptoms may start showing betwen 2 and 14 days of contracting the virus and this is where it becomes very important to consult doctors instead of waiting for one's oxygen level to drop.

Boosting one's immune system to take the fight to the virus appears to be the best way in the absence of an effective drug to treat the patient at the moment and the mantra should be such that no patient is allowed to deteriorate to the stage that he or she would need to be put on ventilator or given life saving oxygen.

It is like boxing in the dark, but still then what has worked so far is to stick to the SOPs laid down by WHO and the ICMR.

It is humans which are the carriers of the virus and the less one comes into contact with one another, the better the chances of flattening the curve and this is all that more important in Manipur and the North East, where in contrast to the rest of the country, the region has been witnessing an increasing spike in daily cases as well as in deaths.

So while the cases of new infections and deaths have come down in other parts of the country, Manipur has been witnessing a steady rise for quite some days now.

The number of new cases has always been above 700 or so for the last couple of days save for a day or two when it dipped below the 700 mark, but still remained above 600.

Same is the case with the number of deaths, with Manipur witnessing deaths in double digit for the last number of days and if this trend continues, the final tally will soon hit the four figure mark.

The climbing number of deaths and the rise in new cases is surely disturbing and this is where everyone would need to be careful and not move out, except when it is absolutely necessary.

Meanwhile it would do good for the Government to ramp up the vaccination drive for everyone.