20200127疾病傳染慎防治Combating Infectious Diseases Cautiously
For the past few days, the outbreak of the newly identified coronavirus that emerged from Wuhan, China has gotten serious. It reminds me of the SARS outbreak in 2003. I remembered that 16 or 17 years ago. Ho Ping Hospital was sealed off. At the time, Tzu Chi volunteers continuously mobilized themselves to offer help.
During the SARS outbreak, by supplying and delivering the necessary medical equipment to whichever hospitals that needed it. When no one dared to make the deliveries, Tzu Chi volunteers stepped in to help complete the task. I remembered it well. Our volunteers in Kaohsiung also mobilized to help.
Although most SARS cases were in Northern Taiwan, Volunteers in Kaohsiung helped with the effort. What effort did they help with? In our former Kaohsiung Tzu Chi office, Volunteers immediately set up several production lines to manufacture medical isolation gowns. Many sewing machines lined up, P，people who knew how to make clothes aspired and came to help.
They helped in manufacturing more than 10,000 medical isolation gowns, caps, and medical scrubs. These were urgently needed. Tzu Chi volunteers gave their timely assistance to provide the supplies. For people who were quarantined in northern Taiwan, Tzu Chi volunteers formed a culinary team and mobilized together to prepare vegetarian meal boxes for them, the effort covered many communities and districts of the Taipei city.
Tzu Chi volunteers always provide help to meet the need of society. Our volunteers are always there to step in and offer their help bravely and come forth without any hesitation. They are true living bodhisattvas. Now it seems like this outbreak is more serious than SARS. SARS patients would get a fever, so people were aware of their illness, and it determined who needed to be isolated.
However, with this virus, it can spread and infect others during the incubation period, and patients can infect others without being aware that they are ill. This is truly terrifying. To combat it, let us all wear face mask; wearing a face mask is a must now. This is the advice given by all the countries. Wearing a face mask can reduce the chances of getting infected or infecting others.
Let us also wash our hands often and avoid touching our face or nose with our hands. Let us not eat with our hands as germs can get into our body through our mouth, hence, let us wash our hands often. Besides washing our hands often, it is more important to keep a vegetarian diet. For one, it is best to be a vegetarian; with this current outbreak, I heard it first started at a market in Wuhan, which sold wildlife carrying the disease.
SARS also originated from live animals; it is a disease carried by animals. Let us eat vegetarian meals as much as possible; haven’t we been encouraging people to be vegetarians? It is hard to get humans to stay away from greed; humans give in to their greed and their desire for the taste of meat. Humans like to eat meat and the meat of many animals.
I often say, in one second, over 2000 lives are killed for meat. Globally, within a day, over 200 million lives are killed for meat. Over 200 mailing animals are killed. These 200 million plus animals that harbor hatred toward humans are now fighting back. Humans eat their meat, they are seeking revenge with humans’ lives.
Everyone, we need to be sincerely pious. We need to have respect and love for all living creatures. If we are worried about our life, we need to first respect the life of all animals. This is following life’s principles. Everyone, please curb your desire for meat. This can ensure our health and safety for a long term. We also need to promote this and hope that every family can do this.
We need to promote use of serving utensils at home. This is very important. We need to develop a good eating habit at home. All in all, we need to be careful. It’s best that we discipline ourselves. If we have been to an infected area and know that we might be at risk, we should notify the authorities and get examined. This is to protect ourselves as well as others.
What we are afraid of now is that an infected person can spread the virus without showing any symptoms. Thus, everyone, we must be sincerely pious. We must make the determination to eat a vegetarian diet. It’s not hard to eat a vegetarian diet, just eat more vegetables and don’t eat meat. Illness comes from what we eat.
Many animals carry viruses. Don’t eat animal meat and get infected by the viruses and then spread the viruses to other people. This is a very serious matter. So, by curbing our desire for meat, we can ensure the health and safety of people around the world. It’s best to eat a vegetarian diet. It’s very important to eat a vegetarian diet.
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