The day I became a number in a pandemic
Having Covid-19 is no joke, and it should not carry a stigma
Health minister Zweli Mkhize announced 304 new Covid-19 infections on May 1. That day, the daily announcement became real to me: I went from trying to make sense of the numbers to becoming an actual statistic of the pandemic.
A few days before, I had been made aware that I had had contact with a person who had the coronavirus. I immediately sought to have myself tested, but a local doctor turned me away, insisting that I wait for the department of health to conduct the test.
When I eventually found a doctor brave enough to see me, the brief consultation took place outside of her practice.
She stood a metre away and asked a few questions before handing me the referral form required by the private lab. It felt like an illegal transaction — except I did not ask: “I have the consultation fee; do you have the form?”
The next stop was the parking lot of a Pretoria hospital. “Stay inside the car,” screamed the lady who came out to assist me when I opened the door.
I wasn’t prepared for the pain of having a test swab shoved into my nostril and all the way down to my throat. The phlebotomist told me the process was going to be uncomfortable. She lied; it hurt.
Twenty-four hours later, my fears were confirmed. The lady on the phone told me I had Covid-19.
My throat suddenly felt as if I had swallowed a needle. Then came the heavy chest pains, followed by a pounding headache.
For two weeks, more and more symptoms took turns battering my body.
Some days I woke up with chest pains, a grumbling stomach and abnormal movements in the abdomen — all at once. One morning, my chest closed up. I couldn’t cough and had to gasp for air. That was the only instance I suspect I came close to a premature meeting with my ancestors.
Friends, family and colleagues turned into health experts, prescribing quick remedies to defeat the flu. My mother advised that for 10 minutes every day I should cover my head and inhale a mixture of steaming hot water, vapour rub and umhlonyane — a revolutionary herb made famous by union leader Zwelinzima Vavi. Vavi attributes his own victory against the coronavirus to this concoction.
My friend Surprise Seema and his family delivered lemons, garlic, ginger and enough grocery items to have fed a whole village. Another friend, Emmanuel Mdawu, recommended his own tried and tested flu concoction — a shot of whisky.
Ginger and lemon replaced my coffee fix. Effervescent tablets kept me drowsy most of the time, so morning and afternoon naps became part of my daily routine.
I switched off news channels and found a new addiction, bingeing on TV series. From Ozark on Netflix to The Outsider on Showmax.
After another test, the results finally came back negative last weekend.
I am one of the fortunate ones, for now. Tens of thousands of South Africans are not expected to survive — either because of their advanced age, or co-morbidities. But some will not survive because they don’t have the kind of support that kept me going.
Some may choose to keep quiet, thereby depriving themselves of the support system, because they do not know how they will be treated by colleagues, friends and even family post-Covid-19. Others will choose to suffer in silence to protect their kids, who will have to go back to school after the national lockdown is over.
The government has opted to withhold information on which suburbs have the highest infection rates because of the stigmatisation of the coronavirus in some areas.
In KwaZulu-Natal, the mindless killing of HIV/Aids activist Gugu Dlamini lingers as the country deals with yet another deadly virus. Dlamini’s sin, 22 years ago, was to reveal her HIV status to the public. According to police, her neighbours felt her act of coming out brought shame to KwaManciza, an area just outside KwaMashu.
Dlamini’s boyfriend told journalists at the time that neighbours had decided to stop socialising with her after she came out.
As provincial government spokesperson Lennox Mabaso told me three weeks ago, there are signs that a stigma around Covid19 is “manifesting itself”. He pointed to an incident that took place in the town of Ntunjambili last month, when the community protested against the government’s plans to treat Covid-19 patients in their local hospital.
Weeks before that, ANC Youth League leaders in Limpopo threatened to organise other like-minded, mindless comrades to block the government’s plans to use a lodge outside Polokwane as a quarantine site for South African citizens returning from Wuhan, the Chinese city that recorded the first Covid-19 case.
As we prepare to step out into the world — when the government relaxes the lockdown regulations — a new battle awaits, to fight the manifestation of stigma around Covid-19.
The spirit of unity the nation has shown by mobilising to deliver food parcels to the poor during this period must be extended to fighting the discrimination against those fighting Covid-19, and survivors.
We must continue to exercise physical distancing, but those who contracted Covid19 must not be made to fear coming back to society after the lockdown period.
The stigma starts with a foolish act like coining a street-lingo term for the disease. Where Gugu Dlamini was murdered, her killers referred to HIV as amagama amathathu, or “three words”, and iqhoks — stiletto shoe.
These terms were used against those who were ill. Anyone who dared to come out was labelled and shamed.
May we reject any such terms for Covid19 and treat this virus with the seriousness it deserves.
Once President Cyril Ramaphosa has reopened the country, I hope to visit my favourite drinking hole to enjoy a cold Mexican beer without having my drinking buddies draw parallels between the thirstquenching exercise and how I made it into the health minister’s daily statistics.