The arrival of August marks five months of quarantine and social distancing, six months since the closure of schools, most restaurants, cinemas, gyms, play areas and other public recreational places. It is hard for me to imagine that we have been out of schools for half a year. To tell the truth, those online classes we all were having, did not really feel like attending a proper, regular school or college class.

Now after almost everything has been opened again, the lockdown has almost been lifted, and the government talks about opening restaurant dine ins and cinemas. Schools will probably also open by mid September, which is next month. Hard to accept that the holidays, days of fun are soon going to be over.

In the midst of all this excitement, of everything re-opening, life going back to normal, the city going back to normal, I think we are forgetting that it will probably not going to be normal, for a long, long time. The world is not going to go back to pre-Covid-19 life — because the coronavirus is very much out there, everywhere.

What people are missing when talking about reopening and ending of lockdowns is there the danger is not over, things are not going back to ‘normal’, but to a ‘new normal’. Why? Because there is no vaccine or medicine yet for Covid-19. There is no cure, or a solution for the coronavirus!

We may be able to go and eat out like before, go shopping like before, go to schools and have our school life, but it would not exactly be like before. We would still have to maintain a distance, be wary of spreading and catching germs, be responsible enough to sanitise ourselves, wear face masks all the time in gatherings, take very special care of hygiene and cleanliness, focus on building our immunity to be strong enough to face the deadly virus.

We did not usually have to do these things before, in the old normal. But we will have to do so now, at any cost.

I am quite sure we all remember what happened at Eidul Fitr, when the government opened malls, markets and mosques in our country for the sake of the economy. People forgot that a virus existed amongst them. They rushed to the markets, without any protection, without caring for their safety and the safety of the people around them, without even wearing the minimum, most basic face mask. People put their eid shopping first and the lives of themselves and their loved ones second. People went to huge gatherings and parties on eid not caring how dangerous the situation was. Social distancing was unseen and unheard of.

Those who took the situation seriously and acted responsibility, suffered too due to the carelessness of others. Fighting a pandemic is not a task a single person can accomplish alone. It takes a united front of all humanity to counter such a threat.

The consequences were clear. Pakistan faced a huge surge in daily cases. Hospitals filled up. They refused to take any more patients. Doctors and nurses worked overtime. The tally went up to a hundred thousand cases. So many people lost their lives.

Due to the irresponsible behaviour of people and their carefree attitude, Covid-19 reached a horrible peak in Pakistan, which took almost three difficult months to subdue.

Now I fear, with the reopening up of everything else that was closed, the cases will be on the rise again and we would have to face another horrible spell of gloom and anxiety and fear. I can see people being irresponsible again because very few people are seen wearing a mask in public, let alone social distancing. Shops, streets, roads and public transport are filled to capacity like pre-Covid-19 days. And I think the danger will be greater this time because transmission of the virus will be easier in areas like dining restaurants, gyms and schools.

While we all should rejoice on being allowed to go out and enjoy, see our friends after ages and hopefully go back to school one day soon in the next month, but we should all take extra precautions.

We have to stay away from big gatherings, wear a mask at all times, carry a sanitiser in our bag. If we are having cold or flu symptoms we should quarantine at our homes to protect the people around us.

If we fail to take this extra care when everything opens up again, we will see ourselves in immense trouble once again. The harm this time will be far greater than before. Students will face a great loss in their education. The economy will suffer once again which will cause many problems.

We should keep in mind that the reason the government has agreed to open all of these places is because we have been successful in flattening the curve, active cases are low and people are recovering. But the economy of our country has been greatly damaged. So many businesses had to shut down, people were unemployed because businesses were closed. That was the reason markets and malls opened up in the first place, so that people could earn their livelihoods. The intention is not for people to rush out of their homes as if the cage they had been trapped in has opened up finally. It is not a cage. It is a protective barrier. And we have to maintain it. The government and health officials expect us to be responsible. We have to be responsible for the safety of our people. For the safety of our economy.

Share this message with your friends and family and urge them to follow social distancing even if they go out. Ask them to wear protective masks. I always tell my friends and family to wear masks when they are going out. I always sanitise them with a Dettol spray myself when they come back home.

As a person who has lost a beloved family member to this virus, I can speak for the thousands of families who have lost their loved ones. All the soldiers in the army stand in a united front. We are soldiers in this war against this disease. It is a war we have to fight together. The whole country, the whole world. The army which does not stand together loses. We do not want to be the losing side.

Take care, take all the precautions and spread awareness to those who do not know and educate them and remind those who do know but do not take it seriously.

Published in Dawn, Young World, August 15th, 2020