BEST OPINION ON COVID-19!!

My Opinion on Covid19, As It Pertains To Nigeria And Lagos State in Particular.
The Government definitely has to add more efforts and perspective to her approach in dealing with this Covid19 Pandemic. It is completely clear that the lock-down approach, though an important aspect, cannot be effective looking at the peculiarity of the Nigerian situation.
First and foremost, the common saying, 'as you lay your bed, so you lay on it' comes to play. The socio-economic state of our nation cannot accommodate a lockdown. We as a nation never valued human life. This nation has never had value for her citizens, the only time the political class engages her citizens is during elections. So, we would be dreaming in the midst of a crisis to expect value from our leaders.
Secondly, asides the lack of value of lives, the state of our economy makes it even worse. The Nigerian economy cannot afford to provide the necessary palliative to make a shutdown achievable. Many People do not know that Nigeria is poor and worse of, mismanaged.
Let me quickly drop a salient point here. Most of us in the social media space do not understand that we do not even represent about 10percent of the Nigerian population. We underestimate the level of poverty in this country, thereby using ourselves as an example of an average Nigerian, no you are not. Poverty is real and the order of the day in this nation. It is impossible for poor people to stay home for weeks because of a Virus or even Death. Poverty is as frightening as death. Why do you think we have a lot of suicide bombers in the poorest part of the Nation? My point is, our economy cannot provide for us, and does not even care to.
Now let’s assume there's a Miracle and our leaders suddenly begin to love and care for us. The statistical infrastructure is not available. Do we even know our numbers, about 200million abi? Welldone. BVN right? Again, we use ourselves to judge and assume numbers. Make a call to your village and ask how many young and old people have account numbers. What is the data of those with underlying health conditions? This nation runs on guess work. We won’t suddenly get it right because of Covid19, again, let us not forget, as you lay your bed, so you shall lie on it.
There is only one thing left going for us, and that one thing would shock you. The only thing going for us is our dying economy. This dying economy is what we have left. This dying economy is how young boys and girls get money to at least survive and send funds back home. With this dying economy is how parents struggle to send their kids to dead schools till they graduate and hope to bite off the dying economy. It is with this dying economy that young boys save up till they can afford the wedding their parents pressurize them to host, so the parents can shame their long-standing household enemies. We use this economy to hold body, till our Immigration visa to Yankee or Canada gets approved.
Na this Economy all of us dey bite from.
Crushing an economy that is already surviving on oxygen cannot be the way forward. We cannot copy and paste what we have in other Nations that have robust economies. Nigeria is Poor, let that fact sink in. But we are rich in resilience and belief and that might be enough to build a Nation when we are ready.
So, this is what I think we should add to the narrative coming out from the corridors of Power.
By now, the campaign shouldn’t be only about not contracting Covid19, the truth is we shall contract it. We will contract Covid19, but the fact remains the fact, Covid 19 is rarely a death sentence.
Seeing the peculiarity of our situation, we have to factually and courageously face what is on the ground. How can we reduce death rate to the possible minimum? That should be part of the conversation.
1. Do not kill this dying economy, because when Covid19 goes, a dead economy would Kill more people.
2. From studies, (verified), the mortality rate for children under 10years in some countries without underlying medical condition is about 0percent, and about 0.3 percent with underlying condition. In Spain, the mortality rate for teenagers is 0.4percent. Other countries have recorded absolutely no causality in this age range.
In Spain, out of 1,285 cases for people 20 to 29 (a much bigger sample size than we have for children), 183 of them have been hospitalized, a 14 percent rate; eight have ended up in intensive care, a 0.6 percent rate, and four people in this age range have died, a 0.3 percent fatality rate.
In the same country, out of 5,127 cases from this cohort, 1,028 people have been hospitalized, a 20 percent rate; 55 went to the ICU, a 1.1 percent rate; and 12 people ages 30 to 49 have died, a 0.2 percent fatality rate.
As of today, according to world meter, out of the over 2million cases, 98percent are mild, while 2 percent are critical or serious. This Covid is not a definite death sentence but also not ignorable. It is a pandemic not never to taken lightly.
3. We need to start having serious conversations and campaigns around separating the vulnerable from the rest of the population. The Government should boldly tell people to take up the responsibility because they cannot. Everyone should keep their parents out of harm’s way using the wisdom of the tortoise. Oga, go and protect your Mum and Dad and grandpa. Those with underlying health conditions and compromised immune system should really stay out of harm’s way.
4. The most important of it all is this. Stop copying Oyimbo people, we have to be pragmatic. Quickly announce the drugs and local herbs that can deal with the Covid19 symptoms. A lot of people have been discharged, how? (e da agbo le si igboro). What we can afford is self-medication. Yes, I said it, we do not have hospitals that can cater for all of us. No Covid19 sef, beds no dey, let’s not even go there.
Announce low risk drugs, especially herbs to the people. Announce immune boosters.
If the government champions this course, it would reduce how charlatans would take over the situation. People are eventually going to go traditional when this thing breaks out. So why not champion it, are we saying herbs are useless? States should develop herbs with partnership of private sector and subsidize it make we dey shack am.
Finally, we would have achieved herd immunity, that is, most of the healthy population would have contracted it and be immune to it. We would have saved lives and saved the dying Economy.
This Narrative is definitely not perfect, but is there any perfect one? We have to look inward and face this Dragon once and for all.
Stay safe.

© Pastor Kunle Zakariya.

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