By Labaran Yusuf
With the rising cases of COVID-19 in the country and the wild conspiracy theories accompanying it, I am always forced to reiterate this simple fact: COVID-19 is real, and it does not discriminate between the rich and the poor nor between a northerner and southerner.
It’s a disease that does not respect class, religious or ethnic divide of the society, especially a fractured society like ours.
Even though some politicians might be playing with people’s lives for one selfish reason or another, I keep reminding people not to be so insensitive and heartless to a crisis that has left many families in mourning and others in uncertainty.
Some people are claiming that politicians are inflating the number of coronavirus cases in their states in order to get money from the federal government. But let’s get this straight – politicians are not the ones testing and confirming whether people have the virus or not.
It’s the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) that does this, which is an independent agency free from political manipulation, at least from the transparency so far shown by the body.
No doubt, the mediocrity of some state governments and lack of effective communication has raised suspicions. We know that isolation centres in many states are nothing but torture chambers, with no proper facilities and even basic food supply to cater for the people kept there.
So, from this unfortunate fact, and with video clips made by people claiming they’re not sick but yet taken to isolation centres, you have the perfect recipe for conspiracy theory mills.
Nigerians have to understand that the new coronavirus is not a death sentence. Studies have shown COVID-19 present mild symptoms, especially in youth and healthy individuals, even though it’s deadly in old people and those suffering from other diseases like diabetes, cancer, or heart disease.
Most people recover from the disease while only about two percent of people infected die from its complications.
As we’ve seen how the pandemic has paralyzed the world and shut down businesses, overwhelmed even the best healthcare systems around the world and infected thousands of health workers, we cannot afford to be foolish enough to let ourselves succumb to the pandemic.
We don’t even have basic health care systems to start with. Our economy is in tatters and our health workers have started getting infected and are dying.
Therefore, we need to be serious about the coronavirus. We should not only educate and raise awareness of the disease to those ignorant about it, but we should also rightly observe the laid down preventive guidelines to help stop the spread of the virus.
Governments should also stand up to their responsibilities – if we really want to put an end to the COVID-19 outbreak.
- Yusuf writes from Jos, Plateau State.
The Nation
