This is Naveen and I am from Himachal Pradesh, India. I would like to share how COVID-19 has impacted my life. The COVID-19 pandemic has radically affected my professional life. I was working in an IT company in Gurgaon since 2018. Things were going smoothly. Then in February 2020, we heard the news about a virus that was spreading in China. A lot of people were dying due to this virus in China. Then the people from other countries panicked. They started running back to their own countries. Initially, there was no such case seen in India. But after some time, few cases were found in India from foreigners who returned from abroad. In this way, the chain of COVID-19 was started in India.

People in India who were also working away from their homes started coming back to their homes. I was also one of them. I returned from Gurgaon (that is in Haryana) to Himachal Pradesh in March 2020. A situation of panic was created all around. After a few days, the nationwide lockdown was announced. After that initial short lockdown, it was extended up to one month. Many companies fired their employees. I was also one of them. I lost my job in March 2020. That was a great loss to me because I was the only earner in my family. Now, no source of income was there for me to run my house. Lockdown was also extending further and further. There was no option left. The conditions in India were also becoming worse day by day. Some people were dying of COVID-19 and many of them due to hunger.

I stayed jobless for around one year. Then I had hardly got a job in March 2021, after a lot of struggles. Unfortunately, after 15 days of having the job, the second wave of COVID-19 hit us in India and it was a new strain of the coronavirus that was more powerful than the previous one.

I got a fever and some other symptoms of COVID-19 so that’s why I returned home and isolated myself for around 14 days. Within that period, the government again announced another lockdown, and again I lost my job. Now, I don’t know how to survive in this tough situation but hope for the best. Maybe God will help the world to come out of this very hard situation.