More than half a year has gone by in an indeterminate state.

More than half a year has gone by in an indeterminate state. The sun still shines, the winds are blowing, the sky is as vast as it ever was, nature is flourishing while humans are caught in a state of uncertainty fearing mortality. People are consumed with thoughts on how to live, how to mitigate the risks of an invisible virus that has made the headline of every news mechanism with fierce messages of death and doom. While life has come to a halt as we knew it, the pandemic has crushed the dreams of millions of young people waiting to embark on their careers; it has hushed industries and businesses and brought trade and commerce to a sluggish retreat. Entrepreneurs are unsure of how to pick up on the scraps of the pandemics devastation when no two days are the same. And much of this damage is all because of the government’s ineptness in dealing with Covid 19. Nationwide blanket lockdown was initially welcomed by the people with implicit faith that the government knew what it was doing. But as the days progressed, it became evident that there was no plan in place. Panic set in as more and more people were left with dwindling or no resources to fall back on. It became a question of homelessness and hunger for the thousands who did not even get access to government relief. People contemplate their lives and the one thing that is starkly evident is that this is no way to live. There is exhaustion, mental fatigue and anger on every tax payers mind. If the government does not have a plan, do not restrain people from finding their own solutions because when the time comes and you have failed in providing solutions and have no resources left, you will only have failed the people. It is clearly evident that lockdowns are ineffective as the numbers of Covid 19 infections have not gone down. Perhaps the policy makers will argue that it could have been worse, but who knows really. The virus and the economy are intertwined as are people’s lives. Fear of the virus cannot be the determining factor of Nepal’s economic crisis. Hungry people are angry people, it’s time that the government mechanisms wake up to the fact that we have to live with Covid 19. The deliberations and actions must now focus on how.