By Alfie Barrie (Television Anchor and Columnist)
It is important to note that this piece is not in any way aimed at stoking a sense of complacency in the general populace. Rather, this piece aims at complementing Government’s effort in blunting the chain of transmission. The media is currently galore with mostly apocalyptic narrations of this Covid19 virus which fills people’s head with a lot of negativity which psychologists have agreed will lead to depression and other related mental illnesses.
I admonish all after taking a cursory look at this piece to Google “The law of attraction in relation to quantum physics”. The crux of that theoretical underpinning posits the concept of always harnessing the mind towards positivity. One needs to fantasize great things in the mind and before you know it will translate into reality. Nearly 50% of the world’s population are currently locked up in their homes and many Governments, even those with liberal democracies, are resulting to restrictive measures to curb the spread of this respiratory virus.
It is important that people do not panic! This is not the first time the world has been plagued by pernicious pandemics. In fact we’ve had several of them such as the Plague of Athens 430 B.C, the Antonine Plague AD 165-180, the Cocolitzli Epidemic and of course the great Spanish Flu of 1918-1920 which infected 500 million people and one-fifth of those infected died with some indigenous communities pushed to the brink of extinction (Otis Historical Archives, National Museum of Health and Medicine).
Humanity was battered, shaken but survived. Covid19 is much more contagious but not as fatal as Ebola. According to the WHO, out of every hundred infections only two or three will eventually succumb to the virus and mostly the aged with underlying health condition are likely to die from the virus.
If you are young, agile and without any underlying health condition and you don’t consume excessive alcohol and other illegal substances and you maintain a healthy diet even when you are infected there is greater chance that you will pull through.
Also, the advent of this pandemic has issued a rallying cry for world leaders to invest in our public health systems. As of now, there are over a dozen vaccine researches currently ongoing and most of them seem to be showing positive signs. It is expected that there will be a vaccine for Covid-19 in the next sixteen months. So cheer up!
Again the outbreak of the Covid-19 has quashed the normally over blown superiority contest that the West normally projects over Africans. Now we are all into this together.
In fact Africa seem to be less scared by this scourge therefore Africans are much more resilient that you think so after this, the South- West disparity will dissipate and we will all work as equal partners. Again, the Covid-19 has rendered the anachronistic class system redundant. Now haves and the have nots are sailing in the same boat and in fact the privileged seem to be the worst hit.
