COVID-19: THE INVISIBLE KILLER
...you asked to see has revealed himself
DEATH is not among the best of topics to indulge in and obviously not my favourite either. On the contrary, I’m a very positive optimistic person; an extrovert and a sanguine for that matter.
If circumstances were allowing I would only entertain nice topics, like how to get rich, relationships, adventures, or spend time reminiscing on some of my childhood memories like going swimming in Chikuni Dam or ku Fati with Kasa,Nhale, Maimpa etc.
I would rather be analysing TV adverts and documentaries with my twin brother Kapi or indeed listening to interesting endless stories from Cathy Amama.
However, since the Covid-19 era talking about death has become part of the new normal, even more popular than the time boys like Darling Evans my dad argue over premier league goals.
Death itself has become so synonymous with the disease such that if people don’t see death then there is no CORONA.
We Zambians are really fascinating people, people who when they hear a gun shot instead of ducking raise their heads high and run in the direction of the gunshot, too much Chimpwena. Like doubting Thomases we always want to see to believe.
But Chimpwena with Covid-19 is like one deliberately taking cyanide to experience how it kills or someone deliberately gets bitten by a black mamba to see how lethal its poison is...Unfortunately, unlike a cat that has nine lives we as humans die once. Whatever happened to letting the sleeping dogs lie?
Currently, the death toll in the country has skyrocketed soon to surpass 200 yet still this means nothing to most people, they are so benumbed as if bewitched by a dead wizard whose spell cannot be undone.
Indeed “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredibility, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.” These 161-year-old words by Charles Dickens could never have been so accurate of 2020. An age of great wealth, most advanced knowledge in all fields, technological excellence, and yet still an age of the most disinformed who replace facts with fiction and fake news.
The truth is that human life cannot be valued thus why the dead are flown in the cargo section with no price tag as valueless cargo. To most of you, these death tolls may be but mere statistics but where you see numbers, we see the faces, emotions, we see the pain and the grief behind those numbers.
We literally put names to statistics, we put heartbroken family members behind those numbers. While some of you want these numbers increase for you to believe corona is real, we who see them for what they are want them to decrease and eventually stop.
The earlier public health measures were meant at containing the infection and preventing its spread, it was Identify and Isolate strategy. Since the patients were hidden in isolation to most of you this meant the disease was and still is a hoax.
Alas, the majority have just laid down their guard, stopped observing all public health measures. I recall when I first came out of the Covid isolation centres where I had been working for close to three months, was shocked to see how people just didn’t care about masking up anymore even in public places. Instead some would even tease me for wearing a mask, saying there was no CORONA why bother wear a mask
Now it seems the wish of most has come true. The
Invisible Killer you asked to see has revealed himself. It’s like Father (MOH/GRZ) who shuts the door to protect his children ( The public) from the lion (Corona) he has seen and is clearly heard roaring outside instead the children team up and force open the door just to see the hungry lion for them to believe its really there.
I live it to your imagination what would happen once that hungry lion gets into that house.
So my friend, now that The Covid-19 you wanted to see has revealed himself, what are you going to do?
For the following section if you are busy, please stop reading and finish up with your business, only then will you come and read on.
Imagine whilst not a wearing a mask you suddenly inhale the CORONA virus from the air expelled by a person infected with the virus who also like you is not wearing a mask.
The virus eventually enters your lungs, attaches to your ACE receptors, penetrates inside your type 2 alveolicites, the cells that produce surfactant which prevents your lungs from collapsing in on themselves. The macrophages, chemokines, cytokines, interleukins like interleukin six mount an immune response that instead of protecting you is actually killing you by the cytokine storm. By now all the air spaces meant for Oxygen are filled up by fluid (exudate) drowning you in your own lungs literally suffocating you from within
Do you still want to see CORONA? What are you gonna do at this point?
As you are pondering what you shall do, this is what we as shall do for you. No matter your sex, age, religion, social, political affiliation etcetera, we shall send an ambulance to pick you up, the driver will risk his life and that of everyone on board with sirens blazing fly you to a Covid-19 isolation centre. There you shall be well received by a team of very hard working self-sacrificing healthcare workers - The Frontliners.
At this point it will no longer be your battle alone. Here we shall tirelessly fight with you clad in our uncomfortable Tyvek suits so you don’t say an early goodbye.
When that time comes if it does, we shall put you on vent, unfortunately here we can only do so much…as at the battlefront we save some and lose some.
This is one war that will keep raging on until a cure or a vaccine is found. If not until we reach Herd Immunity for CORONA the threshold is about 50 to 67 percent. With Zambia’s population at 18 million, it means nine to 12 million people must be infected before Zambia reaches Herd Immunity.
Globally with 7.3 billion people about three to four billion have to be infected. Currently, we are just above 5, 000 infections in Zambia and over 16 million globally. It took three years for the
Spanish Flu of 1918 to reach Herd Immunity.
Because you are reading this article, one thing we can agree on is that you are probably not experiencing the scenario that I have been describing but since we don’t know where we are going, anyone is at risk of getting infected by this virus and going through that painful and irreversible journey to an early grave
The final thing we can agree on is that at least you and I can play our roles in the fight against this invisible enemy. As we the Frontliners sacrifice our lives in the trenches of the Covid Isolation Centres, you can also play your part by just wearing a mask in public places, washing your hands regularly with soap or a genuine handsanitiser and socially distancing, kindly just stay at home if no need to be in public.
Together we shall conquer Corona if we play our wise part of observing these public health measures, but if we disobey we risk opening a Pandora’s Box whose contents can never be returned. The choice is ours, and posterity shall judge us.