Would you have guessed this about our world before Covid-19 hit us?

1. That a virus would bring the whole 21 century modern world to a humiliating grinding halt.
2. That a virus infection could end up replaying horrors of the black plague of the Middle Ages. Admit, we never really gave that plague chapter in History any real thought, did we?
3. That the same place that gave History the three sweeping devastating plagues would also be giving us the devastating Corona.
4. That all initial attempts to contain Corona will be so utterly useless. We humans are like water drops in a swimming pool; you can't separate us, right? Yet religion, politics, skin colour, language, blah blah need but just one word to neatly slice us aside like a piece of cake. Boy Oh Boy!
5. That the simplest thing to fight Corona virus from spreading would be just to maintain distance, wear a mask and stay at home! (Some communities have been covering their entire bodies even in sweltering heat since centuries for reasons that have nothing to do with health or infection crisis and never complained. At least we had a sane reason, didn't we?)
6. That people who drool at action hero and superhero films that usually portray a young-simpleton-nobody energetically rescuing the world, planet or entire human race, would cringe and cower at the idea of staying at home or wearing a mask to keep everyone safe.
7. That people who whine about work stress, mounting overtime work, hectic schedule, commuting, not getting enough time for self and family, and daydream about holidays, relax-wake-up-late-morning luxuries would tire out of 'stay at home' so soon.
8. That gold would face competition with whom? Toilet paper! Who would have thought that? Certainly not our white humble self-effacing toilet paper.
9. That, of all things, Corona will teach us that cleaning up our environment is not only very much possible but can also be so quickly achieved. The lockdown reduced air pollution to such an extent that people could see Himalayas in the horizon 100 miles away that hadn't been seen before because of being completely invisible in thick dark heavy pollution.

Normally, these magnificent peaks 200 Km away from Punjab lie hidden behind pollution haze and nobody knows they are even there.

Images from the NASA Earth Observatory show a stark drop in pollution in Wuhan, when comparing NO2 levels in early 2019 (top) and early 2020 (bottom)

10. That no book, no religion, no astrologer, no Guru, no prophet, no God, no angel, no demon, no whatever ever saw Corona coming although all of them do keep predicting routinely about coming prophets, falling trees and brewing storms with unaccountably weird accuracy.

But that's just my opinion.

Thanks for reading.