By Ahmet Abdulaziz ….
The year 2020 is almost gone, and the New Year is just around the corner. Not just for me alone, the year 2020 can rightly be called the “COVID-19” or “Corona” year. That’s how it would probably be referred to by historians in the future.
The world has been through such tough periods many a time. There have been epidemics when millions of human lives have perished, but perhaps we find COVID-19 more lethal since we are facing it personally. The past was the past, and the future is yet to come, but it’s the present time that we are currently passing through. At the moment, the whole world is passing through the “COVID-19” period.
Some 11 months ago, when the virus had first surfaced in China, none of us had given it any importance. The world remained indifferent as the news of the loss of human lives in China surged. The world remained quiet when Chinese scientists started fighting against this lethal virus.
The whole world did not take COVID-19 seriously until one day it started showing its face in the whole world. The COVID-19 kept on moving from area to area, from country to country, from person to person. It kept on taking human lives according to its own criteria and choice. The graph of humanity dying from this lethal virus kept on going up.
The whole world found itself helpless against it. Countries started taking precautionary measures to reduce the effectiveness of the virus, by stopping people from coming close to each other. In different periods of time, in different parts of the world, people found themselves restricted to their own houses. The economic activities reduced to a minimum. The economic losses kept on mounting, as the lethalness of the virus could not be brought under control.
The whole summer of 2020 was a summer lost. The world saw the least number of tourists everywhere. People preferred not to leave their houses and countries. The figures of economic losses kept on moving up along with the numbers of human lives lost.
Now, by end of the year 2020, we have started getting news of a 
new vaccine, which is expected to keep COVID-19 away from us. But right now nothing can be said with certainty. The year 2021 should show us the real effectiveness of the vaccine.
However, I have a question in my mind. The COVID-19 virus is a man-made virus, produced in a laboratory. It has upset the whole world, just because it came out of the laboratory by mistake. I do not know how many hundreds or thousands of such lethal viruses are available in laboratories, in different countries.
What will happen if some other virus gets out of a laboratory by mistake, in the future? Is the world prepared for that?
