Now that our own flu and malaria season is here (I)

So, here it is. The number of Nigerians being reported daily for COVID-19 has increased from the usual 300 to an average of 600.

Whereas this could not be said to be extremely alarming compared to what some other countries went through and are still going through, but we know that the reality is that our health system does not have the capacity to capture most people who may test positive for the virus.

As I have always wagered, thousands, indeed millions of Nigeria are walking around with the virus, and many have gone through the 28 maximum days of infection, in our different villages and ghettos, treating themselves with local options, totally oblivious that what is wrong with them is some novel virus.

Many have also died as a result of complications brought about by the virus interfering with their underlying conditions.

In this fight against the virus, my preachment remains that we must have a very broad view of events.

We must consider every possible angle.

The arrogance of those who buy whatever they hear on CNN and whatever the WHO/CDC says is causing more problems than it is solving.

Calling people ‘Covidiots’ and being insultive and defensive is indeed an idiotic way of life in the first place, pardon the pun.

Intellectualism demands prising through every idea and information while seeking for the truth.

In this matter of life and death, the people of the world are right to demand answers and to point in the different directions that those who posture as ‘experts’ seem to have missed, or shilly-shallied around.

After all, we have seen and heard everything from how Covid19 is airborne to how it is not so airborne, how asymptomatic people can transmit to how they no longer can transmit, how corpses must be incinerated to how there is no need to incinerate, how everyone must mask up, to how masking could even exacerbate people’s conditions, and so on, all from the experts who then admit that they are learning on the go.

If the experts can learn on the go, apparently the people who are being infected should also have the leeway to learn on the go.

As I have always stated since this matter came up, when a disease is said to be this debilitating and devastating, it behooves that a people should throw everything and anything they have at it – the entire kitchen sink and much more.

The experts cannot hope to show up on primetime TV, scare everybody to death while expecting people to stay transfixed for their next briefing. Never works that way.

Back to the apparent spike in the daily reported cases. I have always said that we need to be very strategic in our actions, else we hurt ourselves more than we can imagine.

For some reason, the world has ignored the science on COVID-19 and instead hugged the emotions.

Gates and others in his realm once wondered why ‘corona virus is not doing well in Africa’ and then predicted that as weather shifts, countries in the southern hemisphere will take a hit.

Even though I researched then and realized that Nigeria is indeed, geographically in the northern hemisphere (southern hemisphere starts in the South of Cameroun), I wagered then that we should probably calibrate the lockdown of our economy to a time when we were likely to face a larger impact from the virus.

I also wondered and warned, that we couldn’t lock down our society and economy from say March, ad infinitum. It was also evident that we needed to consider the prospects of herd immunity as a people.

Unfortunately, most ‘educated’ Nigerians were unable to grasp the full picture, and till date, many of them are merely freaking out, asking for total lockdown ad infinitum, for as far as the eyes can see.

The stupidity of such an idea, and the adverse effect on public health is not apparent to many of these people, most of whom earn steady income even if they sit at home.

Most Nigerians have to struggle to get cash flow and I believe the impact on the majority should guide public policy.

One thing is scientific though; we are now in our malaria and flu season.

According to the CDC, the normal flu kills between 250,000 to 600,000 people in a given year.

The Covid19 as at today June 14, 2020 has taken about 434,000.

We know that what is being reported globally is everyone who may have had Covid19 even if they die of cancers and other more serious conditions.

The focus is also on the large figure which includes even those who have healed.

Why is the world not focused on the people with active cases?

Of course the global lockdown must be justified.

Covid-19 must be proven to be deadlier than the Spanish flu even though it is lagging behind by far.

This methodology is different from what obtained in the 1918 Spanish Flu scenario where the focus was clearly on the then untreatable flu.

Between 1918 and 2020 there has been tremendous improvement in medicine and human mobility as a result of globalization and travel means that many more human beings are more immune to all sorts, than obtained in 1918.

There is therefore an attempt to work to the answer, as many medical doctors have shown us especially in the USA, Italy and elsewhere, that they are being compelled to list all sorts of deaths as COVID-19 deaths.

This is because until the COVID-19 toll exceeds 600,000 within a year, it can be labelled a major hoax.

I also looked at the current data and I think Nigeria, with 90,000 tests should ask herself how she has lost 407 patients, as against a Ghana with 250,000 tests and 51 casualties.

Apparently, COVID-19 is exposing the underbelly of national health systems, from the USA to Europe, and Nigeria. More on that later.

I will list some points below which I think we need to note now that – as predicted – our flu season has come.

Let us not forget that each year, most of us come down with the flu, cough, catarrh, some fever, and so on. Some people come down with the flu more than once a year.

It is all about how our body builds immunity to these diseases.

Covid-19 will not change that cycle, so I advise that we remain cool, calm and collected – especially our hospitals which are causing many unnecessary deaths as a result of their fear and cynicism.

Millions of Nigerians, especially those belonging to the AA blood group will come down with their usual malaria fever, and the usual unhygienic nature of our society will land a lot of people with typhoid fever.

Panic and despair never helps anyone in a bad health situation. Hope and logic does.