COVID-19: Let’s cycle back to the beginning (I)

“Everyone in the citadel doubts everything. That is their job.

But the tales of the long night can’t be pure fabrication. Too many similarities from unconnected sources.

In the citadel, we are the world’s memory, Samwell Tarly

Without us, men would be little better than dogs; don’t remember any meal but the last; can’t see forward to any, but the next.

And anytime you leave the house and shut the door, they howl, like you’re gone forever.

When Robert’s rebellion was raging, people thought the end was near; The end of the Targaryen Dynasty;

“How will we survive?”  When Aegon Targaryen turned his eyes westward, and flew his dragon to Bluewater Rush.

“The end is near! How will we survive?”

And thousands of years before then, during the long night, we forgive them thinking it was the end.

But it wasn’t. None of it was.

The Wall stood through it all.

And every winter that ever came, has ended”

– Archmaester. In Game of Thrones Season 7

I came across this remarkable conversation watching my collection of Game of Thrones yesterday and it spoke to me. We live in a season of fear, where 90% of the world have bought into the idea that we have to hide else we all die. Some call it social distancing. We have granted unto governments around the world, all of our rights, and retrieving them back will prove more herculean in some jurisdictions more than others. But every winter that has come, has also ended. Human beings have changed many things in the world. We are smart – well some are much smarter than others – but none can claim to be in total control of the earth and all its elements. The winter that has set upon us promises to be long and harsh. The night is also long and spooky. But the sun will shine in the morning. May we not die in despair, in hopelessness, in depression, in fear, in trepidation, especially for what we have not seen, which someone has described very vividly to us, and which we are barred from questioning, from doubting. Members of today’s Citadel must remember, that we are the memories of the world, it’s very conscience, and humanity relies on our constructive interrogation, lest we all live lives that are lower than dogs.

UNPACKING MY TAKE ON COVID-19

Given my experience in life in general, I have since learnt not to take most things on the surface. It is always great to triangulate information, to corroborate using two or more sources. And so, when the Covid 19 story broke, I had cause to do the same. I ferreted for information, given that there were equivocations on the part of those at the centre of it. It doesn’t matter if global agencies were in the centre of it all. Human beings run global agencies and antecedents show that human beings get up to all sorts. I was amazed at the use of fear by medical people to propel a medical issue. I asked questions and was told by some medics that that was the right thing to do; use fear. By training though, when someone tries to activate my emotions – especially fear or greed – my armor snaps in place. I started losing respect for science, and for those medical people. How can you say there was no escape from a disease? How can you ask people not to boost their immunities? Do we just crawl into a corner and die? If you say tens of millions of Africans will die, how can you ask them not to try anything that can help them? Are you also saying all the professors, PhDs and so on we have are useless? How did our ancestors survive before you showed up? Those and many more were questions swirling through my mind.

BODIES ON THE STREETS OF AFRICA

Melinda wasn’t the first to say this. Her hubby had been repeating it. So, they sponsored a famous simulation just six weeks before this disease broke in China, in which they concluded that 65million people will die in 18 months. Johns Hopkins University, which chaired the simulation, has had to issue a disclaimer on its website denying, albeit feebly, that that simulation does not have anything to do with what started six weeks later. Nothing at all, except that the name (new-coronavirus), the diagram, and much more were exactly the same. Our people usually say when the witch cries at night and the baby dies in the morning you know who to hold. Johns Hopkins may put up a brave face today but it is grossly embarrassed by being part of that event, which it may have considered a mere academic exercise. The WHO, CDC, and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation were also there, alongside super corporates like Johnson & Johnson (which is one of the proposed vaccine suppliers), Lufthansa (which may now go under), Marriot (which, like other hotels is feeling much pains right now), and ANZ Bank, among others.

One thing that those who find my views grating at this point – some of whom have called me names – will find it hard to deny is that I have been right on the issue of numbers of calamity. At 11 dead, 373 affected and 91 discharged as I type this, we haven’t done badly, and it will not only be because of social distancing, isolation and what not, but there has to be other factors.  This morning as I took a walk, I saw members of one Covid TaskForce in yellow reflective jackets, stuffing themselves 6 in a car on their way to work. No one wore masks. I also saw loads of Civil Defense personnel in the same conditions. I went to the market yesterday and most of our people interacted the way they always have. The market was still as dirty as it has always been. People milled around communally, to eat or to chat the way they always have. The culture shock demanded by Covid is turning out to be too much to ask. Africa’s casualty number has remained low, and this has become quite embarrassing to the ones who sponsored or participated in the simulation, such that they are making further postulations that millions will die here by the fall and winter. I found a couple of research articles online yesterday. Dalhatu et al (2012) writing in the Journal of Infectious Diseases about influenza viruses in Nigeria, stated that our flu season is between November and March of every year. It is possible that Nigeria has overcome the worst for this season. But I believe Covid will keep reoccurring, vaccine or no vaccine. The idea of vaccinating 7billion people at once is flawed. For one, how do they access conflict zones, in Afghanistan, Kurds in Iraq and Turkey, Easten Congo, Northern Burkina Faso, North East Nigeria, and parts of Niger and Chad that are under Boko Haram territory? And once you leave 100,000 people un-vaccinated somewhere, the model breaks down. We may be in for a long season of fear and blackmail. Other opinions and ideas must be brought on board and by all means.