My brother and his wife

I wondered if I should post about it here.

My brother, working as a psychiatrist in Tohoku area, has suffered from reactive depression and is off from his duty at a hospital. Several weeks ago, unusually, he has given me an e mail asking if ACE blocker, a drug for hypertension, had an adverse effect to augment the novel Corona virus infection since the drug could enhance the expression of ACEII receptor, known as the receptor of the virus as well, on the host's cell surface and it might facilitate infection of the virus. I was almost ignorant of that but have answered what I knew, possibly, it won't occur. Later, researches on this problem have revealed that the drug won't enhance the infection of the virus but could work to inhibit it. I believe my brother has accessed that research works by now.

Anyway, he seemed to have worn out with the outbreak. Maybe, having worked as a doctor for a long time without any pause, he must be mentally tired. When he let me know of taking sick off, I told him he had worked enough and deserved a long off for now.

He has been a faithful and loyal son and has been good to our parents for years. Together with his wife, he used to visit our home for week ends once every 2 weeks while parents were alive. What a pleasure it was for our parents to have てthem here in regular interval. His wife kindly served our parents as if they had been her own parents. Working in full time those days and being busy with cares for the children, we could not thank more to them. Whenever recalling their efforts to help parents and, indirectly, ourselves, I become full of gratitude to them.

The emergency period has been elongated for another 4 weeks. The government won't compensate the economical loss to those who should stop working due to stay home request, that is, actually stay home order by the government. Some of them would step into a disastrous poverty comparable to that in the time of war. Namely, we are getting into an era of poverty unimaginable and unprecedented for most of us. If the infrastructure of the society, that is, those working for the life line, would be jeopardized, there could be a panic in the society. Even in this situation, certain faction of public and private sector is still getting obscure profits from the policy of distributing benefits to the people.

We have had a wonderful dinner together with my brother and his wife several years ago. It was really like heaven on the earth. A lot of talks, laughter and compassion only those with the same family history could share. May it be realized again not far from now.