A senior politician in India is currently making headlines all over the world after their bizarre comments about the coronavirus pandemic.
Trivendra Singh Rawat, a former chief minister of Uttarakhand province in northern India, said that we should not be wiping out the coronavirus.
The reason?
Well, he believes the virus that causes COVID-19 has the right to live just like all of us.
In his own words, he said:
Seen from a philosophical angle, coronavirus is also a living organism. It has the right to live like the rest of us. But we think ourselves to be the most intelligent and are out to eliminate it. So it is constantly mutating itself.
For those that are wondering, biologists do not classify viruses as true form of life.
This is because viruses are not made out of cells and they are not capable of producing their own energy.
However, that is not the case with Rawat.
He says that the answer to this pandemic is to just run away from it.
He explained:
We now have to keep our distance from (the virus). It is also moving and we are also moving, but we have to move faster than it so that it gets left behind.
Suryakant Dhasmana, the vice president of the Uttarakhand Congress, released a statement about the claims of Rawat, saying:
What Rawat, who was the state’s (chief minister), has said, is nothing but foolish and nonsense. He has lost his mind and has no vision because of which he was replaced abruptly by his party. The virus is a living organism, so was Ravana, Kansa and Mahishasura. But they all were killed by different gods because they were destroying the world just like this virus which has killed lakhs (thousands). Rawat is just uttering sheer nonsense.
The horrible comments of Rawat comes when India is going through one of the toughest times in its history.
The country is reporting at least 350,000 positive cases of coronavirus on a daily basis and the total death tole is rising quickly.
Over 260,000 people have died so far.
The Indian variant of the virus has caused a massive oxygen shortage in the country.