എം റ്റി എച്ച് എസ് എസ് വെണ്മണി/അക്ഷരവൃക്ഷം/A little concern

A little concern “Oh My God! Was that a dream??? Or ...It’s REAL!!” she shouted. Lena was watching her daily news channel at 4 pm when she suddenly heard the shocking news... The news reader read it with disgust,’ An unknown virus spread in Wuhan killed 13 people...The Chinese scientists and WHO suggested that it would be a new kind of Corona Virus...’ Lena was shivering because unlike other children of her age, she was fond of researching and collecting data about different virus and their effects on different living things. And she knew Corona virus was not a simple virus that can be get rid of easily. Unlike other virus like Spanish flu... it doesn’t have a huge impact on humans unless the person infected is suffering from other major diseases. Lena quickly jumped out and ran to her father’s garage which he had turned into a research lab. Her father was a well-known scientist of their state (Kerala) and had won many prizes for his research on various virus. She found her father pouring some fluid from one test tube to another carefully. She yelled,” Dad, did you just heard that? Virus on Wuhan!” Lena’s father wasn’t very excited about that because he had already heard that news early that morning and he was already shocked..he didn’t know what else was going to happen there...but he said to her daughter, “Don’t worry, dear..it is still not identified that it is Corona virus and it can be anything else. Let’s see.” Several days later it was identified that a new type of corona virus was it and till then it had spread to entire Wuhan and government went mad about it. Lena was curious to hear the latest news about that...her father who had got a subject to research about was busy in the garage day and night. And now the only thing she knew was that it was not going to end soon and would spread to entire world if not controlled. She had read about several epidemics and none of them ended less than a year. During her debate with her father Peter, she understood that the virus would even come to Kerala. She was bothered than anyone else.. And it happened as she thought, the virus was there on her state, first identified in the country. Now the only thing she could do was to warn others and prevent it before social spread..she knew the only way to that as a concerned citizen was obeying and respecting the valuable advices given by her government to erase the virus. She obviously started using handwash and masks, and avoided herself from social communication and asked her foreign relatives and friends who had arrived recently to contact the government and be on quarantine...What else! She did her best.. After several months, when her state had claimed to be ‘Corona free’, she was honored by her school for being ‘the most active student in the state for controlling Covid-19 spread’ and she was asked to give a speech about her experience. That was when she said this, ’prevention is better than curing when affected.. I didn’t do anything special, but everyone can do this...Just thing about yourself and your loved ones and understand this huge community of health workers work for us, not for them...” IRENE SARA PHILIPOSE 9 A MTHSS VENMONY ചെങ്ങന്നൂർ  ഉപജില്ല ആലപ്പുഴ  അക്ഷരവൃക്ഷം പദ്ധതി, 2020  കഥ  സാങ്കേതിക പരിശോധന - Sachingnair തീയ്യതി: 07/ 02/ 2022 >> രചനാവിഭാഗം - കഥ