COVID-19 & LESSONS TO BE LEARNED...(2)

VIROLOGISTS & EPIDEMIOLOGISTS: while many of us may have before the Covid-19 Pandemic heard or known of the existence of virologists and epidemiologists, it is more likely, few of us paid any serious attention to who they are and what they do. With the global devastation that Covid-19 is wrecking however, more of us are beginning to realize their importance with regards to the study of the virus and how it can be defeated. According to chron.com, Virologists are microbiologists who study microorganisms that quickly duplicate, resulting in the rapid spreading of viruses. Their primary work is to figure out how diseases like AIDS, SARS and hepatitis spread (I guess you can now safely add Covid-19 to the list), in order to prevent more rampant development and to assist in vaccine development. Virologists’ core duties involve researching, preparing, conducting and overseeing studies of microorganisms so as to better discern what contributes to their growth and spread of the virus in the bacteria and thus better predict the evolution of the virus in populations. Epidemiologists on the other hand, are involved in the study of epidemics and their spread over a defined period of time.

Because of Covid-19, we are now seeing epidemiologists and virologists more often on our TVs and paying attention to what they have to say about how to contain or stop the spread. In a country like Nigeria where certain fields are not very valued, some of us will, going forward, now learn to appreciate the importance of these fields and the difference the work they do, can make to whether we live or die.

VIRTUAL CLASSROOMS: one of the first things done in many countries was directing the closure of schools in order to both protect the children and contain the spread of the pandemic. The need to keep the children engaged and to ensure their education does not suffer as a result of school closure, necessitated a move from the 4 walls of the school classroom to virtual classrooms enabled by the use of video conferencing apps. Of course, online education and webinar classes were not uncommon for tertiary level education pre-Covid-19. What may be relatively new is the younger ones at the primary and secondary school levels receiving educational instructions online. Many are even already considering taking the virtual classroom for the younger ones beyond the Covid-19 era. It is of course, a whole different thing whether parents, who have had to work extra hard to keep their children engaged during this lockdown will be in support of any such move.

AREA BOYS, UNEMPLOYED YOUTHS; LEGACY OF CIVIL RULE?: this is more peculiar to Lagos State though it can also be found in other parts of the country to a smaller extent. The Covid-19 induced lockdown brought along its security challenges. While increase in domestic violence, cybercrimes and petty thefts had largely been anticipated, it is doubtful that a resurgence in armed robbery operations were expected. However, that was the situation some days before the end of the initial 2 weeks Federal Government lockdown in both Ogun and Lagos States. While officials of the Police Force tried to play down the resurgence of house to house robbery attacks even after parading some 200 or so suspects they arrested, the fact that most neighbourhoods drafted their men into some sort of emergency vigilante to ward off the criminals added to the hardships foisted by the lockdown.

There is no doubt that hunger became even more of a problem with many who could barely afford to feed well even at the best of times. However, it is my belief that a good majority of the boys/young men who terrorized hapless people during the period were guys who never had any real employment before the lockdown and a number of them most likely form part of the army of young men armed by our politicians during election periods and who afterwards use the weapons, including guns, that they were given by politicians, to commit crimes against ordinary folks.

If the army of young unemployed men who spend most of their days doing nothing but who have the desire to wear designer clothes and use expensive gadgets, did not give people of the South-West and particularly those in Lagos, much cause for concern before, what happened during the lockdown should make us sit down, or perhaps stand up and take action on how this ticking time bomb should best be safely defused.  

COVID-19 PANDEMIC & THE MANY LESSONS TO BE LEARNED...(1)

Many people have said, and I agree for the most part, that the world will, as a matter of necessity make adjustments to the way many things are done post-Covid-19. While people desperately long to get their lives back post-Covid-19, those lives would have been greatly impacted in some ways by this pandemic. There is no doubt that for many, both individuals and corporate bodies, the return will be to a new normal. The fact that as at today, the 10th of June 2020, more than 7.26 million infections have been recorded and over 411,879 people have died across 188 countries and regions (according to data monitored by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering [CCSE] at Johns Hopkins University), and the near global restrictions of movement of people means that Covid-19 has wrought a lot of negatives. However, much as the pandemic has wreaked a lot of havocs globally, there are some positive changes that are already being made and will still need to be made in many countries of the world. The purpose of this article is to look at possible lessons to be learned and positive resultant changes that should be made both across the world and in Nigeria in the wake of this pandemic and its effects. Because there are several aspects to consider, this article will run in a few series.

CHINA AS THE WORLD FACTORY 

Long before Covid-19 started wrecking havoc in other countries of the world, its economic impact was already being felt in many countries chiefly because virtually everything that one can think of, are being either manufactured or assembled in China. The Western countries in pursuit of the maximum profit they can possibly make, decided the best thing was to tap into the huge population that China has, to get cheap labour and in so doing, outsourced virtually everything to China. This is the reason why when China started sneezing and coughing literally, the whole world started shivering with the cold of a slow in production of goods. It is time this trend is examined and tweaked to focus a bit less on just profit making and more on each country going back to either resuscitating or expanding its manufacturing capacity locally. The way many companies in the wake of scarcity of medical equipments particularly PPEs, redirected their focus towards local manufacture of this medical supplies, is a positive.

Beyond the capitalists’ actions which caused the world to rely almost entirely on China for most goods, the pandemic’s travel to other countries from China caused many countries to place restrictions on pharmaceutical goods and food supplies. The reason for the restrictions is not farfetched; each country wanted to be sure it would have enough supplies to meet its own needs. A country like Nigeria thus has to seriously work on producing many of tis needs for its large population. We have to go from a consuming country to a manufacturing country. On this, the CBN’s determination to push the country into local production of most the goods consumed in the country is a step in the right direction. 

Also, fact that Nigeria, while not having China’s population, is the most populous Black Country in the world with an estimated population of about 200 million people at least 65% of whom have been said to be below 35 years old should even be more of an incentive for us because what that means is that we have a very active population, and engaging that population productively will not only grow our economy, it will massively reduce our very high unemployment rate, reduce, poverty level and our over-independence on imported goods while also reducing crimes due to more people having opportunities to earn honest living.

                            Unemployment rate as at Q3 of 2018. Source: NBS

SOCIAL INTERACTIONS

It was common pre-Covid-19 for people to assume that physical interactions reduced drastically with the advent of smartphones because many people appeared to prefer chatting than talking even when in physical proximity to each other. The meme of a child wondering whether he was downloaded by his parents who were always bent over their phones, I believe, is a very popular one and aptly describes how smart phones have changed human interactions. 

                                             Source of images: Pinterest

However, nothing contradicts our seeming preference for interaction behind the comfort of our phones more sharply than the speed with which this virus traveled, carried and transferred by humans, from the city of Wuhan in the Hubei Province of China to most of the countries of the world. The lockdown has more so, shown very clearly that man truly is a social animal and even when virtual contacts seemed to be taking over, and sometimes, even when we will rather chat when we are in the same place instead of talk face to face, physical interactions have proved very important. I suspect that if only for a while, as the lockdown is being eased and after it eventually ends everywhere, we shall learn to treasure more, the friendship and interactions of the people in our lives. And perhaps, in countries in which so many died because of the selfishness and irresponsibility of a few, people would have learned to be a little less selfish and will be more open to acting in favour of the greater good.