Don’t believe claims of 100% cure for Covid-19: Narendra Nayak

Mangalore Today News Network

By Narendra Nayak, President of Federation of Indian Rationalist Associations

Mangaluru, June 23, 2020: While the scientific community all over the world is working hard to find a vaccine and a proven line of treatment for Covid-19, the so called yoga guru and his associate have found an alleged cure for the same  and that too a ’scientifically validated’ one.  One  wonders how 100% cure is claimed by a so called study on a few hundred patients. According to  Ramdev, the cure is 100% in seven days and 69% in three days - a revolutionary discovery indeed worthy of a Nobel prize. While it is easy to make such claims for diseases which are self limiting, the real efficacy of the concoctions would be in saving the 5% of the infected and since almost everyone is going to be so, this would amount to around 7 crores of the population.

While such claims would be laughed off anywhere else in the world in India nothing will be done. This sorry state of affairs is going to cause chaos all over the country because the big following of this man will ensure that his word will be taken at face value and the population at large is going to ignore all suggestions of physical distancing, protection using masks or hand washing due to the belief that this would cure them of the illness if they are infected. That too the claim that these will cure is a bold one different from those of the sugar pill vendors and grandmother soup ingredient dispensers, who would always say vaguely that their nostrums would build up things like ’immunity’ etc. We suggest that since his medicine claims 100% cure both of them take bottles of their own preparations and spend a week in the Covid-19 wards of any govt. hospital in Delhi personally dispensing them to the patients without any PPE!

The already overburdened health services are going to be overwhelmed if this happens and the country is going to be in a sorry state. Though the ministry of AYUSH has already issued a directive that no such ads are allowed, the said people seem to be above such laws.

Hope the Union Government will take immediate action to stop such activities to contain the spread of the viral infections. The Federation of Indian Rationalists Associations strongly condemns such attempts to spread superstitions among the people.