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| LETTER TO EDITOR |
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| Year : 2020 | Volume
: 17
| Issue : 2 | Page : 114-115 |
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Cherished Serendipitous Effects of Disastrous COVID-19 Pandemic: The Desired Side Effects of an Undesired Event
Sujita Kumar Kar1, Sarvodaya Tripathy2, Deblina Roy1, SM Yasir Arafat3
1 Department of Psychiatry, King George's Medical University, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India
2 Department of Microbiology, MKCG Medical College, Brahmapur, Odisha, India
3 Department of Psychiatry, Enam Medical College and Hospital, Dhaka, Bangladesh
| Date of Submission | 05-Sep-2020 |
| Date of Decision | 26-Sep-2020 |
| Date of Acceptance | 26-Sep-2020 |
| Date of Web Publication | 08-Feb-2021 |
Correspondence Address:
Dr. Sujita Kumar Kar
Department of Psychiatry, King George's Medical University, Lucknow - 226 003, Uttar Pradesh
India
 Source of Support: None, Conflict of Interest: None
DOI: 10.4103/IOPN.IOPN_32_20
How to cite this article:
Kar SK, Tripathy S, Roy D, Yasir Arafat S M. Cherished Serendipitous Effects of Disastrous COVID-19 Pandemic: The Desired Side Effects of an Undesired Event. Indian J Psy Nsg 2020;17:114-5 |
How to cite this URL:
Kar SK, Tripathy S, Roy D, Yasir Arafat S M. Cherished Serendipitous Effects of Disastrous COVID-19 Pandemic: The Desired Side Effects of an Undesired Event. Indian J Psy Nsg [serial online] 2020 [cited 2021 Sep 21];17:114-5. Available from: https://www.ijpn.in/text.asp?2020/17/2/114/308829 |
Dear Editor,
Over the past 4 months, the world has witnessed a potential threat to the mankind in the form of SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic, which has resulted in mortality, morbidity, financial losses due to lockdown state, emotional breakdowns, and exhaustion of essential resources and scarcity of infrastructures to meet the exponential growth of demands.[1],[2] It has been reported that pandemics produce intense damage in society and result in social disintegration.[1],[2],[3],[4] Literature often discusses the significant negative impacts of pandemics.[1],[2],[3],[4] However, it can produce effects that are long-cherished, however difficult to achieve during the routine lifestyle, especially in developing countries.
The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the homeostasis in every sphere of life such as changes in personal, societal, cultural, emotional, and even on the spiritual level. It has been reported by various electronic and print media regarding fall in the levels of air, water and noise pollution across the globe.[1] After the lockdown in Bangladesh, Dolphins have become visible in the Cox's Bazar beach. The continuous lockdown has facilitated a reduction in air pollution in several metropolitan cities globally, which governments could not achieve in years of efforts and millions of dollars. There is a significant reduction in traffic in most of the crowded cities of the world like Mumbai and Dhaka.[5],[6] Across the globe there is increase in governmental expenses in building the health infrastructure. China, for example, built high-quality large hospitals to meet the health needs within a few weeks, which otherwise would have taken months for getting established. People throughout the world, are united for a common cause. There are sparse incidences of crime and road traffic accidents.[5]
The benefits reported on the personal level can be categorized into being macro-benefits or micro-benefits. The macro-benefits are –decrease in unnecessary expenditures, improvement in the sense of hygiene, poor access to substances like alcohol, tobacco in many countries which ultimately facilitates de-addiction in most of the nondependent users. During this COVID-19 pandemic, it has been seen that hygienic sense and health precautions have been increased in the general population.[5]
At the micro-level, benefits can be in the form of improvement of interpersonal relationships, attitude to share responsibilities at home, self-control, introspection and increased involvement in creative and innovative work. Spouses are getting more time with each other, children are getting quality time from their parents. People spend more time exploring the spiritual dimension of their life. It has been also seen that people donating money and helping fellow people in this crisis, which usually does not happen so intensely most of the time. Empathizing abilities are one of the important human quality that gets stimulated during such crisis situations. These cherished effects seen in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic can be considered as serendipitous effects though the damage due to the pandemic is significant and likely to worsen further in the coming days. Pandemics have challenging roles in the development of science as well as human history. In response to this COVID-19 pandemic, scientists are now trying to develop vaccines as well as medications which could be an important development of science.
Since ancient times, pandemics are somewhat a regular and miserable part of human development. Every time it gives us new innovations, new vitality and grounds to grow. Probably this is the way to live and survive as being human, we need to adapt to our environment as we can't control it totally. The pandemic is lasting longer and it is difficult to predict its course. However, it seems that the pandemic not going to be over soon. Whether the beneficial effects that happened due to lockdown is going to persist is a matter that need to be seen. As the lockdown was over in many places, factories are opening and vehicles are on the road, the beneficial effects may not persist long with that same intensity.
Financial support and sponsorship
Nil.
Conflicts of interest
There are no conflicts of interest.
| References | |  |
| 1. | Ahmadi M, Sharifi A, Dorosti S, Jafarzadeh Ghoushchi S, Ghanbari N. Investigation of effective climatology parameters on COVID-19 outbreak in Iran. Sci Total Environ 2020;729:138705.  |
| 2. | Chakraborty I, Maity P. COVID-19 outbreak: Migration, effects on society, global environment and prevention. Sci Total Environ 2020;728:138882. |
| 3. | Muhammad S, Long X, Salman M. COVID-19 pandemic and environmental pollution: A blessing in disguise? Sci Total Environ 2020;728:138820. |
| 4. | Qiu W, Rutherford S, Mao A, Chu C. The pandemic and its impacts. Health Cult Soc 2017;9:1-11. |
| 5. | Tripathy S, Kar SK, Roy D, Mishra S, Arafat SM. Community perception of the environmental and wellness impact of COVID-19 and its possible implications for elderly population. JGCR 2020;7:68-73. |
| 6. | Arafat SM, Tripathy S, Kar SK, Kabir R. Climate and clean air responses to COVID-19: A comment. Int J Public Health 2020;65:715-6. |
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