It is another Friday and after some time of being absent
from this platform I am finally back to commit to bringing weekly articles
having cleared the obstacles that were in the way. In my last article before
the break, I had invited writers from across the readership to volunteer their
services to ensure that we all had articles as I went about with my endeavors.
A few promised to feed us but did not actually come through, but finally here
we are.
There is only one thing that the world is talking about and
that is the Covid-19 outbreak. Before I went absent, I managed to provide basic
details of what the disease is all about. A lot has changed between then and
now as we have now registered confirmed cases in the country. The coming in of
the new cases and the updates on the outbreak in the country is bringing in a
lot of reactions and the result has been the outright increase in epidemics
that we have to deal with on top of the Covid-19 pandemic; misinformation,
poverty, stupidity, blind politics and the other epidemics you can add to the
list.
By the time I am drafting this, there are more than 2.6
million coronavirus infections and the same has claimed more than 184, 000
deaths. The numbers will be more than what I have reported by the time you read
this and while the situation is resolving in other countries, the natural
trajectory of the pandemic entails that things might get worse before they get
better in our country. This point is very important to note because we do not
need to be caught unaware and to be spreading misinformation and propaganda
over something that others knew would happen months before it happened. That
brings us to the other epidemics that we will have to struggle with amid this
Covid-19 crisis and these are happening at state, community and individual
level.
Weeks before we registered the first case in Malawi, there
was a lot of talk on the diagnostic capacity and hiding of cases. I will get
into that later but some people took it to the social media to celebrate that
Malawi had not yet registered a case despite our neighbors having some. I
quickly dismissed the joy as premature and my reason was simple; as a nation,
we did not utilize the honeymoon phase in which we did not have cases to
prepare for this time when this pandemic has knocked on our doors. We have seen
the effect of this lack of state-level preparedness as we are yet to see the
authorities get to be decisive about the public health measures we are going to
use to curb the disease as a country. This is one side epidemic that has been
and will continue to cost us; lack of preparedness.
As Malawians, we have always been heavily political and
these coronaviruses could not have hit at a worse time considering our
political mess. Close to a year has gone after going to the polls but we are
yet to get over the May 2019 election for reasons everyone who can click the link
to this blog knows. The combination of the political situation and the global
pandemic has led to the politicization of the response to the pandemic both at
all levels from the state to the individual to an extent that there are some
who are of the belief that the government is inflating the number of cases to
ensure that we do not have the fresh elections that the Constitutional Court
demanded on earlier this year. I am aware of the ruling party’s abilities, but
I beg to differ on this one. My argument is simple. If we are to look at the
surrounding countries, they are registering comparable numbers of cases and I
do not think that they have elections that the ruling elite want to avoid over
there. That is the other pandemic; politicization of the pandemic.
In line with the politicization of the cases, the mainstream
social media have been awash with allegations and propaganda relating to
various aspects of the disease from diagnostics through statistics to
treatment. Those of us who are health workers have had to answer a lot of “is
it true” questions preceded by the most ridiculous of rumors and assertions.
Worse still, some health workers have joined in the bandwagon of those who are
spreading false rumors about the pandemic. Misinformation, then has become the
other pandemic that we need to fight as some of the messages are leading people
into unnecessary panic and fear while on the other extreme end some
misinformation is leading people into believing that Covid-19 is less of a
danger than it actually is. There is only one way this would go if these waves
of misinformation are to be left unchecked and that is an increase in the
transmission.
I was trying to avoid mentioning the other serious accessory
epidemics, but I would like to think that there is lack of leadership in the
response to Covid-19. In the west, we saw Boris Johnson, the British Prime
Minister and Donald Trump leading the way in giving information about Covid-19
to the people they lead. In these information sessions, they were flanked by
experts who took questions about different issues relating to the pandemic
response. Closer to home, presidents in countries like Uganda and South Africa have been addressing the
populace on the measures that their governments are taking to curb the spread
of the virus and to help the citizenry in the wake of the economic hardships
brought about by the virus. The story has been different here because while we
have seen our leader address us on the pandemic on a couple of times (well,
maybe one), the job of updating the country has been left in the hands of the
cabinet committee tasked to respond to the outbreak. I would have had no issues
with that, ideally but truth be told I am not convinced that our men in the
cabinet are handling this well. Lack of decisiveness is nicely twinning with
lack of leadership to counter the efforts to prevent the rapid spread of the
disease.
I will skip the issue of those who itch to share
misinformation and the issues we will have due to what I call the 21st
century, money-driven and click-bait sort of journalism. This I might attack
the next time I get to make time to write, but to make misinformation on social
media worse, the mainstream print, television and media houses could do better
in the coverage of the pandemic.
I will not go in detail on how to tackle each of those
accessory epidemics but I will address them in general terms. We have heard
about the general measures of avoiding crowds, washing hands and avoiding
touching of the face. We got the numbers to call to seek help and to ask for
information. Perhaps if we start to go by that, some of these issues would go.
While I understand the volatility of our political
situation, it is important to remember that not everything revolves around
politics. The management of Covid-19 and the public health measures instituted
are not meant to target a certain political grouping and as such they need to
be viewed soberly. Media houses should do their part in extinguishing rumors
that may potentially fuel carelessness and neutralize control efforts.
The government needs to rise to the occasion. As a nation we
have been sleeping on this pandemic but I am glad that some strides are being
made towards the right direction. Experts need to be roped in to guide public
health interventions and treatment efforts by the government to ensure that the
already ailing health system is not overwhelmed by the virus at some point. We
also need to learn from countries that have done well and adapt the measures
they have taken to our context. The fact that there is a hard lock down in
South Africa does not mean that we should also institute a lock down; the fact
that the governor of the New York metropolitan area is pestering his president
for ventilators does not mean that we also need ventilators and the fact that
South Korea went to the polls in the midst of this global pandemic does not
mean that we should do the same. The copying and pasting of interventions might
prove costly because there is no universally applicable playbook for the prevention
of the spread of Covid-19. At a time when Malawi and the world at large are
plagued by this pandemic, we need the leadership to step up and coordinate this
response; epidemiologists, health workers, scientists, faith leaders,
innovators, economists, law enforcement and all other relevant professionals
need to sit on one table and figure out a way of preventing the spread of this
outbreak and to ensure that preventive measures for the disease do not worsen
the living conditions of the masses.
Covid-19 related strikes and demonstrations? Masks and
gloves in the streets? Why don’t we talk about those in subsequent pieces.
Have a lovely weekend. Remember. Covid-19 is real. And oh. Kuvota
tivota. Koma mochedwa.
