This pandemic has stretched our imagination

Kenya is struggling to effectively give guidelines on the control of Covid-19, in the face of a liberated opinionated public that are very vigilant on any slip up of judgement on the part of the authorities. The problem with pandemics is that no one is truly prepared and the best learn on the go.

The pandemic has exposed the soft under belly of humans. Nations that are reputed to be organised and were indeed rated by the World Bank in a 2019 report to be the best prepared to deal with emergencies are crawling under the weight of the pandemic. Ironically, China, which seems to be fairing much better than the rest of the world was rated at fifty-one, while America was rated as number one.

Clearly the ratings of international organization are too much influenced by traditional perceptions that are proving to be quite divergent in the face of reality. Sometimes they are just down right subjective and shaped by the perception that Africa and Asia must by design remain at the bottom of the scale.

As a result, the entire world is going through a reality check that is proving to be painful and calls for some reawakening of the collective human consciousness. It has exposed the vulnerable nature of the human species and the fact that global dynamics become immaterial when it comes to survival of the species. In all the global efforts being put towards corona virus, in the end all humans are trying to establish is how the virus is selecting the ‘weakest’ and mitigate this selection. It does not matter what name we give it – searching for a vaccine, social disengagement, quarantining and a previously unheard of acts of global self-isolation.

LOCAL MANUFACTURING

At that tail end of the pandemic the entire world is going to change a number of things. One of the obvious one, is that more countries will give more attention to local manufacturing, which clearly has predominantly been left to china. When china shuts down, it looks like the rest of the world shuts down as well. But local issues may be ahead of global changes.

In Kenya we are on the edge of change. We cannot go back to what we consider to be normal life, not in the long haul.  We must change the infrastructure and social/security habits that were created as a knee jerk reaction to terrorism. It should be illegal at the moment for a security guard at the entrance to rummage through a handbag with one-time-use gloves that have been worn all day. Just that one action can spread a pandemic to the entire traffic of a mall. We must also ask ourselves if this is necessarily a solution to terrorism or just an invasion of privacy whose consequences can end life in the face of a pandemic.

Buildings that require members of the public to leave National identification must find non-contact ways of keeping track of people accessing the building, such as CCTV cameras and other forms of technology. Asking people to record their details may not work either, as the pens in use become harbingers of death at this point.

UNTOLD AGONY

Our public health system is what one would call a no brainer area of change. The lockdown of major cities such as Nairobi and Mombasa must be causing untold agony to patients of cancer and other diseases whose medical services can only be found in large cities. The public still needs to access renal units, radiotherapy and chemotherapy. What are their options as the major health facilities concentrate on Coved-19?

Kenyans should consider the increased use of technology as business solutions. Here the focus must be on small and medium enterprises, which clearly support a large part of local trading economy. Kenya is ahead of many countries with the use of mobile money transfers, but it is not used enough in markets and neighborhood dukas to guarantee a cashless economic model. It also needs to be made more affordable for users. It is still way too expensive.

Many other social cultural changes will take place and may as well become the new normal. Home schooling will no longer be such a foreign concept as children stay longer at home and parents start to understand the challenges that are facing the school systems and their children’s interests and what they do not like.

Globally the need for business travel will reduce and almost be entirely replaced by global conferencing tools. Locally, the Kenyan voter hopes that bench marking trips by elected leaders will be a thing of the past, as more money is allocated to essential services at both county and national government levels.

And just what will humans do about hugs and handshakes?

Twitter: @muthonithangwa