Don’t take Covid-19 pandemic lightly; you could kill everyone

The Covid-19 disaster in Kenya is taking a familiar, predictable, ominous path.

There are tens of infections every day, the deaths too are now three, up from none only a few days ago.

If it follows the path of other countries, there are going to be hundreds of infections, climbing to thousands in a matter of weeks.

The difference between the current and future infections is that those who are sick today are in hospitals with tens of medical staff caring for them, with oxygen and ventilators aplenty.

When the virus fully takes hold towards the middle of next month, there will be no hospital beds for everyone and most sick people would have to be cared for at home.

I have been listening to doctors, briefings and experts and I have formed a few firm opinions, which I wish to express.

Kenyans are going about their lives normally, totally oblivious of the guidelines thus far issued.

Unless you are coughing or wearing a mask, they are in each other’s faces as usual. There seems to be some reluctance to maintain distance, as if doing so is somehow rude.

BEHAVIOUR CHANGE

People are still going to birthday parties and drinking in groups in their houses.

Young people, especially, seem to have delusions of invincibility, unaware that the myth about coronavirus not killing the youth, that the virus is a “Boomer remover”, has long been debunked.

Many people are still unaware of the dangers we all face; they have buried their heads in the sand, where they shall remain until, perhaps, the contact tracers kick in the door.

More still are aware of the dangers but will not change their behaviour unless they are forced by the police or the military.

Yet it would be so easy to do what South Korea and Singapore, which have disciplined populations, have done.

Populations that have no discipline, such as South Africa, where policing the lockdown is proving to be a nightmare, are gambling their survival.

Fact number one: if you fall sick, as one medic put it, you are a “lost case”. You will be competing for the 500 beds countrywide set side to support Covid-19 patients.

FINANCIAL MUSCLE

And not all those beds are usable: many doctors will not attend to a Covid-19 patient outside a negative pressure chamber, so, the bed might be there but not the doctor.

We are also competing for medical resources, including critical-care staff, with a much wealthier, equally desperate globe.

Our doctors and nurses are in high demand around the world. Don’t be surprised if you wake up one day and find that we have been plucked clean. You simply can’t count on treatment.

And you can’t count on lockdown either. Being Kenyans, we are looking for a shortcut, and for someone else to bear the responsibility of forcing us to do what we don’t have the discipline and good sense to, even when it is for our own good.

What the government appears to be wrestling with is where it will find the money and the systems to distribute food to those who will have to be fed in case of a total shutdown.

I suppose the calculation is to try and restrict movement, change behaviour and delay as long as possible imposing a lockdown, which would force it to feed certain communities.

DIFFICULT SITUATION

Secondly, does the government have the capacity to enforce a nationwide lockdown, especially when the population is uncooperative, riotous and has to be subdued?

It would almost certainly involve putting troops in the streets, which, in itself, has its own complications.

First, soldiers are not trained to police; they will violate rights and cause serious problems.

Secondly, we are at war with Al-Shabaab; do you want to expose troops to an increased risk of infection?

If you have the virus running through the ranks in the military, how will you defend the country?

If we were all to cooperate, work from home, maintain social distance and only leave our homes when it is absolutely necessary, we can have a sort of voluntary lockdown.

My own sense is that, increasingly, it is becoming sort of clear, away from the press conferences, that we have a pretty serious situation on our hands.

Think of all the other returnees from abroad. Think of the tens of airline crew who served on flights, some of which brought the virus to our shores.

FOLLOW GUIDELINES

If one patient lit fires all the way to the lakeside and places in between, establishing clusters of disease, imagine airline crew who are young, social and likely asymptomatic.

Imagine the hundreds of innocent students fleeing the disease in Europe and America and unwittingly making others sick back home.

This is not a small problem; this is a big problem. And the solution is not ostracising our children and compatriots; it is a disciplined and deliberate personal decision to deny the virus new victims.

If you look around East Africa, everybody is fighting this same battle. Some are in denial, some are fudging the numbers, others don’t even have the capacity to test for the virus or the organised medical staff to advise them.

Yet their citizens continue to cross our porous borders.

We can reduce the number of problems the authorities have to resolve: wear a mask in public, do the hygiene thing and try as hard as you can not to get infected.

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