More than a Herculean task

Streams of unsettling news are being reported from around the world carrying chilling messages for us.

Some news reports from just this last Sunday tell us where we now stand in the ongoing battle against the Covid-19 pandemic.

The US government's top infectious diseases expert makes a prediction that the number of deaths from coronavirus in the country could reach 200,000 with millions of cases.

He warns that New York, New Orleans and other major cities would soon run out of medical supplies.

The governor of New York, hotspot of the pandemic in the USA, says the situation is not going to get better soon.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson warns, things will get worse before they get better.

One of his ministers warns the period of lockdown could be 'significantly' long a day after the country's medical director said Britain will have 'done well' to keep deaths under 20,000. Death toll in the UK has already passed 1,000.

News from other European countries is frightening too.

Italian authorities said Sunday they would extend a month-long lockdown to stem the pandemic as the death toll in the country reached 10,779 with 756 fatalities reported in the past 24 hours.

In spite of having an advanced level health care system, Italy has recorded the world's highest death toll.

The situation in Spain is similar to Italy. It recorded 838 deaths on Sunday, the largest one-day rise in the country since the outbreak began weeks ago. The increase brings the Spanish death toll close to 7,000.

Europe alone recorded more than 20,000 deaths out of a global toll of 30,000 due to high fatalities in Italy and Spain.

Both the countries have demanded more European help as they contend with the continent's worst crisis since the Second World War.

But the magnitude of the pandemic is so vast that it forced each country of the 27-member European Union to shut borders for the first time in 25 years since they opened the borders to each other.

A single day's news reports show how Europe and the USA are scrambling in the nail-biting battle against the pandemic.

The war in reality is much larger than what was assumed initially.

Success of China and South Korea in the battle they already fought can no more offer a flicker of hope for a quick win as the pandemic is marching at a furious pace in Europe and USA and other countries. Global leaders can hardly figure out an adequate response in the fight with the Covid-19.

Their relentless efforts to protect people from being killed by the invisible enemy and allocation of trillions of dollars to help the global economy recover fast from the havoc caused by the virus seems to have fallen short. An eerie uncertainty has gripped the entire world as none can predict for sure as to what will happen tomorrow and the day after.

Nobody knows if this virus will behave like previous pandemics. Will it disappear suddenly after it has run its course, satisfied with the rapid and indiscriminate killing of more number of people than the Spanish flu did a century ago?

Not only Europe and the US, the world as a whole was devastated by the Spanish flu of 1918-20.

Perhaps we the people in the Indian sub-continent were the worst victims of the Spanish flu. Some 18 million people are thought to have died, or 6 percent of India's total population at that time. The flu killed an estimated 50-100 million people worldwide.

A hundred years later, India and Indian sub-continent are now far more crowded.  Fears are rising that the world's second most populous country could again bear a disproportionate share of the global agony, says the Economist.

Global health experts have predicted that India could be the next target of pandemics.

In India, the number of Covid-19 cases crossed 1,000 on Sunday including the death toll of 29 according to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare figures.

Any outbreak of virus in India may endanger us too as we are geographically contiguous with people moving in and out all the time.

Meanwhile, the situation in Pakistan is getting worse. The country recorded 19 deaths as the number of known cases crossed 1,600 though its population is less than one-sixth of India.

Bangladesh has reported fewer deaths and known cases than Pakistan though it has almost the same size of population. As of Sunday, our health agency confirmed five deaths and 49 known cases.

The lower number is no consolation as medical experts are decrying fewer tests and lack of preparation to fight the pandemic.

The ongoing hard-fought battle by the UK that has one of the world's best healthcare systems and the US, the world largest economy, shows us the stark reality: fighting the coronavirus pandemic is more than a Herculean task.