Outlasting the masking

SINCE the departure of severe strains of the COVID-19 coronavirus, the pandemic has slipped into the margins. Relegated from view by the appalling carnage in Ukraine, and Russian grain stranglehold on the poor of the world, the virus that has devastated the world for two years no longer attracts much attention in the global media. Except perhaps in China where they are ultra-careful about COVID-19, but politically don’t appear to care two hoots about Ukraine, and probably spend more time visualising how the world would react if they decided to ‘embrace’ our good friends, the Republic of China Taiwan (or whatever they call themselves these days).

One of the problems with pandemics is that their war against mankind – oh, sorry, I should say ‘personkind’ – is significantly different from conventional warfare. There is no discernable end to it. You won’t see a similar moment to when the political leaders of the warring factions either throw up their arms in triumph or creep quietly into an insecure seclusion. I do confess to a minor tremor of exhilaration when, following the recent government statement about masks not being mandatory, I entered a supermarket and started recognising people

I hadn’t ‘seen’ for two years.

Apart from short moments of triumphant buzz, one is seeing merely a pandemic drift and hopefully a favourable one until it moves steadily into lower vigilance categories and becomes gradually forgotten.

This may of course, in common with normal warfare, be just a ceasefire in the pandemic. Perhaps that’s what we would really like to see in Ukraine at the present time. That’s not overlooking the utterly barbaric human and other destruction by the Russian Government. But there is a serious risk of escalation, given the continual ramping up of military assistance from the West. All that’s missing from the start of a Third World War is the Americans and Europeans actually firing their donated equipment. Time to get to the table.

Damage

Back to the more appealing subject of normal and decent human beings, and how they are currently affected by COVID-19. Well, it’s done a huge amount of damage in terms of loss of life and the crippling of business entities, with a serious negative impact on most economies. You go to buy groceries and you see a continual rise in prices. All blamed on COVID-19 and the Ukraine war but one suspects a degree of ‘jumping on the bandwagon’ and opportunism built in without any accountability. Fuel prices have to be the best example. When the world price of crude oil goes up, so does the price at the pump. When the world price goes down, the price at the pump … er, oh dear … it hardly changes. And with no convincing explanation even attempted.

Returning to COVID-19, if you study the world data you see that people are not dying at the rate they were before. And thankfully that is precisely what is happening in Eswatini. In the past 18 days, we have seen no deaths at all and, in the past week we have even encountered, for the first time in ages, two separate days of even zero infections. This admittedly only captures incidents of individuals who, for one reason or another, are testing for COVID-19. We have no idea how many across the country are just dealing with any unpleasant health symptoms in the way in which they have dealt with ‘a flu’ in the past. And in some cases contributing to a very welcome herd immunity.

Strong

But, at the same time, immediately following the announcement about masks – came a sudden rise in vaccinations. Is that a coincidence? I think not. Africans are strong – I’ve played a lot of sport with them in various countries on the continent – and they tolerate so bravely the tough conditions of the poverty that so many face. But when it comes to medical treatment they’re different. The famous ‘injection’after visiting the hospital is treated as the panacea. Half of them are probably placebos. And most emaSwati won’t vaccinate unless they absolutely have to, presumably because they don’t like even a tiny amount of a virus to be artificially placed within the body. It’s understandable and possibly why the vaccination rate has been so low; only 32 per cent after all these months and with the facilities being available. Now the masks are off they’re facing the music and, again, ultra-cautious, perhaps turning to vaccination; the number surging for days after the masks came off; three times the rate of previous weeks.

The next two to three weeks will be very interesting. Will the rate of infection rise? We aren’t seeing any new severe variants. What is that telling us? If nothing else, it’s saying LEARN. Learn from COVID-19 having come out of nowhere, with the world unprepared. The world must commit time, skill and resources to its protection efforts, and to dealing with future pandemics. And stop eating bats.

Prevention is more effective than punishment. Prevention is better than treatment.