Do you believe in naming children after global events?
It’s not a new thing, with squillions of people today named Sputnik, Apollo, Nobel — and now it seems the Corona virus.
A couple in the Indian state of Chhattisgarh have just named their newborn twins Corona and Covid.
The twins — a boy and a girl — were born during the ongoing 21-day long, nationwide-lockdown that began on March 24.
“The delivery happened after facing several difficulties and therefore, my husband and I wanted to make the day memorable,” Preeti Verma, the 27-old mother of the twins, told news agency Press Trust of India.
The couple said the names would remind them about the hardships they faced during the lockdown and ahead of the successful delivery in a government hospital last week.
Verma said they had no help at the time of delivery as their family members could not reach Raipur due to the lockdown.
“With vehicular movement stopped, we both made it to the hospital somehow late at night after a lot of suffering.
“Since the deliveries happened after such difficulties, we wanted the names to be memorable and unique,” she said, hinting that hospital staff had suggested the names.
“Besides, these names are beautiful in their own, with Corona being Latin for crown,” added the proud father, Vinay Verma.
“Also, we want the fear associated with these names to end and the public to focus on sanitation and hygiene.”
The couple said there was pressure, however, from family elders and they could change their decision later and rename their children.
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India is under a three-week lockdown until April 14 that has seen the suspension of transport services, with strict stay-at-home orders.
The lockdown has resulted in the suspension of trains and airline services and effectively kept 1.3 billion Indians at home for all but essential trips to places like markets or pharmacies.
India has 2909 confirmed cases of the Coronavirus across the country, including 68 deaths.
The overall number of known cases in India is small compared with the United States, Italy and China, but health experts say India could be weeks away from a huge surge that could overwhelm its already strained public health system.
Meanwhile, across the Indian Ocean near Durban, a bride and groom were arrested at their wedding in KwaZulu-Natal on Sunday for allegedly contravening regulations of the 21-day nationwide lockdown imposed by the government to curb the spread of coronavirus.
Police spokesperson Brigadier Vish Naidoo said some 50 people, including the pastor and bridal couple, were arrested in Hlabisa for contravening lockdown regulations pertaining to the amount of people allowed at a gathering.
“They are likely to be charged with the Contravention of the Regulations of the Disaster Management Act 2002,” he said.
A video of the bride in her white wedding dress getting into the back seat of a police van was doing the rounds on social media on Sunday.
The arrests were apparently made after police received a tip-off of a wedding taking place in the area.
“We are currently processing them. They will be taken to Empangeni police station and kept in the holding cells,” an officer was quoted as saying.
Last week another KwaZulu-Natal couple was arrested at their wedding after they defied a traditional leader’s instruction not to go ahead with the event.
It is believed the couple were arrested moments after they had taken their vows on Saturday.
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