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Abstract
The asymmetry of the human mind in treating the information that is currently available and the information we do not have is remarkable. During the Covid-19 pandemic, many people have been conscious to take precautions to prevent contracting the virus oneself or their family members. However, the consequences of a person infecting another are not consciously considered by everyone while going on about their ‘new normal’ life making daily transactions that involve the labour of a multitude of people. Nobody pauses to wonder whether anyone in the supply chain of the product or service consumed by an individual has contracted the virus or died due to the virus in the process of its production. This is because that information is unavailable to us in a tangible form for our minds to perceive and hence it chooses to ignore it. Although the number of cases increases with every wave, people have started accepting it or rather have become desensitised to the number of lives lost to Covid-19, mainly because these deaths are unseen. This article explores whether such a pondering – number of people infected and consequently lives compromised – would be a consideration in the decision-making in the production and consumption of products and services. If so, is there a need to develop a metric to inform us of this number? Would it be feasible to have such a metric? This article attempts to quantify these unseen deaths, so as to sensitise people to the consequences of a person getting infected.
Introduction:
Now, two years after the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, most people reading this would have lost one or more relatives, friends, colleagues or an acquaintance due to the infection. I am no exception. But the trigger for this article is the death of a couple, Razia and Nasir (names changed) that happened in the summer of 2021. Their small fruits and vegetable outlet, by a synergic arrangement, was situated within the spacious premises of another outlet – a cold storage that dispenses meat, poultry and fish for the upwardly mobile residents living in a posh locality of Bangalore.
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