Let's Defend Others From Ourselves

It's the right time to quote Marko Miljanov, the mayor of Podgorica in the distant 19th century: “Courage is when I defend myself from another, and humanity is when I defend another from myself.”
Today, more than ever, we need to protect others from ourselves. One irresponsible person is enough to infect a hundred conscientious and honest ones.

Humor on social networks is good and healing. But, more than ever, I am tired of the almost insane stories about the coronavirus. There is plenty of paranoia. What is the point of speculating whether this virus was made in a laboratory? What good does it do to know whether the virus is natural or artificial if it threatens equally and kills equally?

I see many comparing the mortality rate of the common flu virus and the coronavirus. Comparing the coronavirus with the viruses of the common seasonal flu is a defeat for humanity. As of yesterday, in northern Italy, in Lombardy, 63 doctors died in three cities. Yesterday alone, 13 doctors died, exposed to the disease because they were ready to help at the cost of their lives. Sometimes I wish that, like those finance chiefs, I would state the number and then the figure written out in words so that some of us would understand and accept it better. In which seasonal flu did 63 doctors die? In which seasonal flu did 13 doctors die in one day in a small area of three cities, like from Bergamo, Brescia to Milan?

Never and nowhere. In Spain, the mortality rate of doctors is increasing and approaching these severe and tragic numbers from Italy. My friend Semir from northern Italy informs me with horror that 4,000 nurses and 8,500 service workers who were working to combat the coronavirus are infected.

Among those infected with coronavirus, about 13 percent are medical workers in Spain. This means that every eighth infected person is someone who wanted to provide help to the sick. Remember Italy, Spain, and think about how many of our doctors and medical staff will become victims of the irresponsible people from our neighborhood?

Among all these people whose lives are at risk are humanitarians. I was shaken watching one of those volunteers in Bergamo on camera, distributing food to elderly fellow citizens. I could see tired and heavy eyes under his mask. The journalist asks him something, and he tries to utter an answer several times. But he has no voice and not a single word, only eyes that fill with tears with every attempt. No one even counts the deaths of these people; they are included in the numbers of those they wanted to help.

Officially, one serious doctor from Bosnia and Herzegovina said that two-thirds of all those infected with coronavirus in Bosnia and Herzegovina are between the ages of 24 and 64. So, it is a younger population. These are mobile children who will infect their older family members, who are risk groups. We in Bosnia and Herzegovina live more uniquely than Europe. As soon as they reach adulthood, European youth leave their parents and visit them only for holidays, and even then, less and less often, until the lawyer's call to read the will. It is humane for our parents to care for us, and for us to care for our parents when they become incapacitated. In these days, this is becoming the key challenge of our fight against the coronavirus. How much do we truly care about the elderly, and how much do we protect ourselves to protect them from this mass killer?

Or, in times like these, do false faces and aspects of all our relationships, from relationships with our own families to relationships with friends and acquaintances, openly show themselves? I follow some people who are casual about this monster of a virus, and until yesterday, they persistently criticized politicians for driving doctors out of this country. They must know that someone's casualness will send many more of our doctors to their deaths than have left for abroad.

When all this is over, one day, a line will be drawn here, and accounts will be settled. The dead, the sick, and the recovered will be counted, but also remembered will be what people said about the horror that was rolling towards us. This is also too similar to the times when war was coming and when hordes of barbarians and murderers were entering our unarmed and unprepared markets and villages. The casual were killed en masse; the cautious mostly survived.
We were late in responding properly to the horror of the coronavirus. We were late in procuring equipment. We were late in understanding the magnitude of the evil that was coming to us. A difficult and arduous time is coming, stay home. It is never too late to protect others from ourselves.