Whether one accepts it or not, Coronavirus, also known as COVID-19, is here. It has continued to spread like aggressive fire in the harmattan period and consequently disrupting everything on its way.
With one way or the other, everyone is caught in the web and gasping for breath. With one plaque, the world has stood still. Governments across the world have been humbled amid confusion.
With what started or appeared like a joke in far away Asian country – China in the concluding part of 2019. Since the news broke, the world has never remained the same again.
At the beginning, many people across the globe, including Nigerians referred Coronavirus as a Chinese problem that perhaps shouldn’t bother other countries. Even the US President, Donald Trump, while fielding questions from journalists, called it the Chinese disease. Apparently, the thought has changed and a lot has happened within a few months.
Not too long, it began to spread through countries and continents with the attendant effects of deaths and sorrow. As at today, the virus, which keeps raging and spreading like untamed fire, has hit over 150 countries and claimed thousands of lives. It is dealing direct and indirect devastating blows on the rest people who survive it.
Then, as the news of the deadly virus (COVID-19) travelled far and near, some persons made joke of it, not knowing how grievous and catastrophic the disease could be. At the moment, Nigerians are no longer finding it funny having recorded almost 10,000 confirmed cases and over 200 deaths. Everybody including the government ought to have suddenly woken up from their seeming slumber.
Lagos recorded the first case of COVID-19, a respiratory disease in Nigeria on February 27.
The busy commercial city has continued to report additional cases and accounting for more than 50 percent of the total cases in Nigeria.
With a population of about 200 million and with limited health facilities available, people are worried that if the number keeps increasing, the country might be in for a big trouble.
Today, the world appears to be in hibernation. The spread of the disease has disrupted the world economy. It has affected the price of crude oil, which is the heartbeat of many nations’ economies. Many multinational companies that produced diverse goods for other countries’ need have been completely shut down. All these measures are for the fear of Coronavirus and the quest to contain it.
Social life, which Nigerians are known to always cherish is caged at the moment. For instance, sporting events that have united people from all races and religions have been punctured and suspended indefinitely. Both local and international sporting events are in compulsory holiday.
All social gatherings are restricted to the peril of fun-seeking lovers. The entertainment industry is groaning even as the entertainers are counting their losses. Many weddings, burial ceremonies, conferences and other major events are being readjusted to no new date.
One might not be exaggerating to say that the world has been quarantined by COVID-19. Borders are firmly closed against neighbouring countries.
Scientists, medics and all stakeholders are walking round the clock to find a quick solution. How soon will the world shout Eureka? Only time shall tell, even as the world are impatiently waiting for a breakthrough to be announced.
Amidst all these stark realities, there are still millions of Nigerians, who simply believed that COVID-19 is a scam in the country. Despite all the attempts by relevant bodies and stakeholders to convince these sets of people, it has remained an exercise in futility.
They want to see pictures and videos of dying patients before they believe. Some of them simply say it is a chronic fever that the health institutions are being mistaken for COVID-19. We have heard on countless times that the virus cannot survive in Africa because of it’s hot weather. There is also an argument that Africans have natural immunity against the virus.
The dizzying rate at which misinformation spreads about the coronavirus disease, recently caused the World Health Organisation, WHO, to raise the alarm.
WHO says the disease has sparked an ‘infodemic’ – an overwhelming amount of information on social media and websites, some simply false.
Head of the United Nation agency’s health emergencies programme, Dr Michael Ryan, on February 13 , said, “We need a vaccine against misinformation.”
Similarly, research director for Harvard Belfer Centre’s Security and Global Health Project, Dr Margaret Bourdeaux, stated, “Disinformation that specifically targets your health system or your leaders who are trying to manage an emergency is a way of destroying, undermining, disrupting your health system.”
A number of unsubstantiated home-grown rumours have been swirling online, perhaps borne out of panic with WHO warning that Africa’s “fragile health systems” suggested the threat posed by the virus is “considerable.”
It would be recalled that less than 24 hours after Nigeria’s first COVID-19 case was confirmed, owners of supermarkets and pharmacies had started to run out of stock owing to an unprecedented demand for face masks, infrared thermometers and hand sanitisers.
Why some persons are needing to advice from health professionals on the need to take precautionary measures in beating the contagious disease, others simply don’t care. You would hear them laughing it off.
However, many people believe that the refusal of the Federal Government to reveal the identity of the index case – Italian man alluded to a cover-up.
To make matter worse, a former Senator of Kaduna Central, Shehu Sani, whose tweets were widely interpreted as casting aspersions on the agenda of the Federal Government, said, “I hope this Italian is not a spirit from Rome; no name and no face yet.
But the Minister of Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire, explained that the Italian citizen’s name would not be exposed as a convention in medicine.
“You do not give out a patient’s name without his permission. If someone has a problem, you can talk about the problem and not his name.
In another twist, the acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Ibrahim Magu, on February 18, alleged that COVID-19 was caused by corruption.
Magu, who gave an address at an event that included the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), said “corruption is the biggest strategy known to mankind.”
The EFCC boss added, “Your Excellency, corruption is worse than all the diseases now running about. And I strongly believe, Your Excellency, that even coronavirus is caused by corruption.”
Despite attempts by the anti-corruption agency to deny Magu’s claim, barely a week after, he insisted that the deadly disease was caused by corruption.
The claim has since been repeatedly debunked by several health experts. Even as many of them described the EFCC boss’ postulation as a sheer ignorance.
Sometime in in February, 2020, a number of hoaxes hit social media claiming that COVID-19 could be “cured,” including with pepper and chloroquine.
The hoax, which appears to have been started by a self-proclaimed spiritual activist, Omotade-Sparks Amos, alleged that COVID-19 could be seen as a “pepper deficient syndrome,” and claimed that eating pepper soup or “Yoruba stew” could protect one.
Swiftly, the claim was refuted by UK-based medical doctor, Dr Babak Ashrafi, who said, “There is no evidence that dietary changes can cure the infection, but fresh peppers are certainly good for you; they’re rich in vitamins C and A, which can help to maintain a healthy immune system.
“Your immune system is important for battling conditions such as coronavirus as it deploys the white blood cells to fight bacteria and viruses within your body. But unfortunately these measures won’t act as a cure.”
On his part, the President, Nigerian Medical Association, NMA, Dr Adedayo Faduyile, told has also said that researchers had not “established” chloroquine as a remedy for the pandemic disease.
There are other group of Nigerians, who believe that the government is using the COVID-19 situation to take in money from international bodies. Some of them are of the notion that the number of positive cases in Nigeria was only being exegerrated.
We, as a medium, cannot but continue to call on Nigerians to keep safe, maintain social distancing, keep high personal hygiene, observe regular washing of hands, put on face masks and stay at home if they must not go out.
