Revisiting the Relationship between Health and Environment during Pandemic Times

Abstract

Health and environment are the basic conditions of human life that are intricately associated with each other. An appropriate exploration into their intricate relationship will reveal that they are not just conditions of human life, rather they fundamentally constitute the life of human beings. This article, explores this relation from varied perspectives including that of the Covid-19 pandemic. The first part of the article argues that the definitions of health have to extend their scope to environment as well, considering the life to be an interrelated and integrated one where healthy environment is a necessary condition for the health of any of its elements or beings. In the second part, the distinction and distinctive relation between two natural calendars that determine the life on earth such as calendar of health and calendar of longevity is examined to show the natural harmony between health and environment. In this regard with the help of the concept of autophagy that was explained in terms of biological cells by Yoshimori Ohsumi, a Japanese Nobel Laureate, it is argued that Covid-19 pandemic has occasioned an accidental solution to the environmental problems in the form of human lockdown that helped the nature to recoup and rejuvenate itself.