When any infectious disease
spread massively among a large population, the authorities usually struggle to
find the best ways to limit its contamination while allowing society to
function as normally as possible. Here I'm not talking about just the human
society; even other living creatures have confronted similar issues for
thousands of years. Some social insects, particularly the ant colonies, have been practicing
sophisticated defense mechanisms- against such an epidemic -which humans should
learn to normalize Covid-19 lockdown. Humanity is standing at dead-end since we
have no medical solution or any other immediate way out rather than relying on
lockdown. However, we need to change the nature of lockdown and make it
systematically flexible for people as well as for economic balance. The change
in lockdown policies may pose some potential health threats. Yet, we must find an
alternative to replace ongoing bunker strategy, which is likely to invite
famine inside the country.
Social insects are an ideal
case to study the potential role of behavioral transformation in disease
defense. The system of social and physical interactions in insects share many
similar properties that are known to influence disease spread in human society. In the case of insects too, the bacterial
disease usually transmits from the infected body to healthy hosts nearby who remain
in regular contact. The research paper entitled "Social network plasticity decreases disease transmission in a
eusocial insect" claims that some species of ants practice social immunity, which shields the colony
against any kind of contagious disease. For example, upon the suspension of any
virus, the ants clean themselves before entering sensitive areas inside the colony,
they carefully dispose the dead bodies and even imports antimicrobial herbal substance inside the colony to
sterilize the area. As per the research, when the black garden ants get affected
by their kind of virus called Metarhizium brunneum ,
the whole ant colony alters their social behavior and start to practice a kind
of collective quarantine. The members inside the colony are divided into Nurses;
who work inside colony caring the brood and Forgers; who go out to collect
food. As the forgers are more likely to
get contaminated, they make minimum contact with other members, and nurses go
even deeper inside the colony. In this way, the ants regulate their life amid
the threat of virus by following strong rules of social immunity to avoid
future damage. Their colony's immune system is the outcome of cooperation and
collective work of all members. This management model seems parallel to human response
against coronavirus, and we can frame ours in more advanced way accordingly
with our socio-economic needs.
While talking about the case
of Nepal, making lockdown flexible without carefully planned mobility systems
may pose the risk of spreading virus to uncontrollable stage. So the government
shall either do serious planning or can just imitate the ant model of social
immunity. The first step should begin by shielding the border, increasing
testing inside the nation and practicing other available medical measures to
curb the spread. Then the model can be implemented at a social level by
dividing the city into different territorial unit, and each shall be managed
like ant colonies. Each family shall appoint one outgoing member who will go
for the job and that group of all outgoing members from every family should
stay in a separate house (community quarantine) located outside the unit at the
edge of town. During the lockdown period, they shall stay together by enjoying
each other's company and avoid contact with other community people as far as
possible. Those members shall cautiously deliver basic needs and other
emergency services to their family members. With such limited and
systematically controlled mobile workforce, we can partially run industries,
businesses, banking and other sectors by sharply following human body
sterilization upon entrance and exit of the workplace.
In the case of Nepal, such
mobility management is not impossible because only few members' in the Nepalese
family are strongly obliged to go to work outside the unit, so the needful
mobility can be followed. In villages, the non-outgoing members can continue
farming works and other local businesses inside their unit. Moreover, the cargo
vehicles and outer members entering the unit shall be sterilized at the entrance.
As a result, the unit can be kept safe by allowing a level of social movement, and
even if someone gets infected inside the unit, then the government can enforce curfew
on that particular area instead of locking the whole city or province. Since
Nepal has an import economy, this model shall work well to minimize possible
economic collapse and make public life a bit easier than complete lockdown.
Our current strategy of prolonging
lockdown is likely to cost human damage in unexpected ways. So till the development of vaccines, the
re-organization of social movement patterns like of ants can help human society
to fight Covid-19. If the creature like ants can curb epidemic by just doing
proper management and careful behavioral transformation, why can't we humans
find the best management model for us. Thus the bigger
challenge today is how Nepal, as a country, will tackle this problem, and most
importantly, the safety measures we exercise at social level will determine our
national well-being.
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