WHO CREATED THE CORONA VIRUS?
By Pricilla Kona
In December 2019, the tide suddenly turned. Winds of change blasting from the Wuhan province of China, started sweeping through states with disturbing news in their wings.
It is now hell on earth,the Covid 19 disease is an immediate clear and future threat to humanity. Death, hunger, layoffs, violence, and crime, are now the hall marks of humanity’s gaze at an unfolding public crisis. Isn’t it exhausting that the Corona virus whose transmission method is unprecedented, is like all viruses,untreatable?
Declared a pandemic by WHO in March 2020, the viral symptoms include fever, cough, sore throat, shortness of breath among others . Like the human immunodeficiency virus-HIV, the Corona virus is less than friendly; attacking & replicating quickly in body cells. The intrigue deepens for as many as are over 70 years and harbor critical conditions like kidney, liver, lung and heart disease,as well as diabetes mellitus and HIV.
Genesis
Many thought the year 2020 would be an alluring antidote to a decade of recession gloom. But the toll of nature’s presiding weirdo virus on collective human health is untold, its origins suspect;
- Was it the wet food market in Wuhan province of China,food that nourishes the body, mind and soul now killing people?
- A laboratory mishap,humanity playing dalliance with their lives?
- What does 5G mean, anyone?
Which way, humanity?
And now the statistics have hit worrying levels and are heading for the roof.Only a handful of countries remain untouched .More than 3 million are reeling under the weight of the nature’s disruptive imbroglio. According to the British Broadcasting Cooperation , over 1 million have recovered so far from a disease whose cure is still elusive? That over 247,000 others have died is to make an understatement of issues.
Stranger than fiction, as developed countries bear the viral brunt, the continent of Africa is still travelling light, with negligible infections and deaths, to the consternation of many. Indeed USA, France, Italy, Spain , the United Kingdom, all of them developed countries are leading the pack in infections and deaths as humanity fights back. According to Agence France Press half of the global population now exist in ‘social’ distance from one another . A new facial dress code illustrates better the predicament; face masks. Haven’t our lives also been infected by a new habit, hand-washing at every turn?
Pandemic
It all started with pictures of men dropping dead in the streets of Wuhan . And by 11th March 2020, the virus was declared a pandemic .As humanity grapples with a social crisis, just what is Corona virus?
It has an uncanny affinity for the older folk and like the human immune deficiency virus,HIV , it attacks body cells , replicating profusely.Through contact with infected surfaces, and respiratory droplets from coughs and sneezes from infected persons, it infects the nose throat, lungs , its symptoms appearing after 5- 14 days. Fever is above 37.5 degrees centigrade , and a dry cough , worse than normal will cause breathing problems subsequently. Sore throat, headaches, loss of smell and taste have also been reported.
6 % of all cases are now reported to turn critical when immune function spirals out of control under the attendant damage.
Will the corona virus leave her mark on the sands of time? Will she continue holding humanity in her thrall?. Why, the toll on our collective mental health is untold!
From far flung countries pictures of doom and gloom emanate.
More deaths than we could have ever imagined stalk the globe. Human folk dispensed into afterlife in a flash, including medical staff; hapless victims of a world going mad. And no goodbyes here, deaths must be socially distant.
The apple cart is upset, the scenario worst case since the recession of the 1930s.
Gross Domestic Product losses are imminent, and the collective global economy is contracting. Businesses, big & small have closed shop as the viral impact equalizes the rich and poor of the species.
Health systems buoy in attendance to the pandemic, medics risking lives to save others. What is a man/ woman to do?
The markets,shops and offices are closing and like ghosts, vendors are moving from door to door selling their wares. The farmer is in lock-down,and hunger looms large .The school meals are no more, and the future of education appears as clear as mud.
The Ugandan government has put in place cutthroat measures to curb spread of the virus. The border, all shops , markets, churches, bars hotels and brothels at the Kenya Uganda border are firmly closed. Traders who sell foods are tested and carry their wares to Kenya in a carefully choreographed plan to avoid infections. But on the Kenyan side of the divide, many have thrown caution to the wind; there is no regard to social distancing and traders freely intermingle wearing masks as the only precaution The municipal askaris have allowed markets to open ‘for tax mileage ‘ .
In Tanzania ,the president is, of all things, telling his citizens to pray away the pandemic, and as infections and deaths soar, he is steeped in denial, still faulting the test kits. Breaking rule after rule , for how much longer will these people play with this wildfire before it consumes them?
The impact on vulnerable families is unprecedented .Ruth ,in Kenya boiled stones to lull her orphans to sleep. Despite the collective goodwill hereafter to her plight, how many more will boil stones, before they slip into a hunger coma?
Paranoia has gripped many, and Sophia in Baringo town, Kenya will no longer take her infant to the health center for the requisite jab.
“What if she contracts Covid 19?”
Arguably , the picture is muddling..
CHANGE
Save for the war in Yemen and Syria , we all had everything going. But today we can no longer take for granted:
- The full sleeves at the store
- The morning school rush
- Conversation with a neighbor
- Coffee with friends
- The crowded stadiums
- The din of the cruise ship
- Every new breath of fresh air
Social decadence
Had the society hitherto been on free fall?
In this part of the world,
- funerals had turned celebratory, long-drawn and each with a price tag for publicity mileage.
- weddings were no more sacred but commercial ventures, will the jingles ever sound again?
- human-folk made weekly beelines to an array churches of every extraction, with as many numbers as names, for spiritual redress. Shutters on church doors hence, or a stroke of a divine hand of wrath? Anyone?
- and on weekends many human-folk all over the world ate and danced themselves lame, with abandon. Like the plague, many now confute shoulders at public gatherings ,their safety paramount to all else.
- the rich man grew rich as the poor man became impoverished by widespread impunity, nepotism, corruption . Is Covid 19 disease like the morgue , fast becoming an equalizer , anyone?
- and how it had worried parents;the advent of unbridled teenage pregnancy, especially in Africa!
- Marriages were breaking like glass thanks to polygamy among others. Now the serial polygamist must stay in one home, socially distant from all others.
The change is clearly unprecedented but not all is doom and gloom.
- Time-bound and online weddings and funerals hence ,anyone?
- Is the husband now tethered to one home? Why , it filled us women with anxiety when in Kenya the polygamy bill was passed last year.
- The planet air is now cool, fresh and still;there are fewer pollutants, the aerodromes have gone silent.
Have you heard this, the ozone layer is patching up? And where did the deafening noises go to ,in nocturnal Kenya ?
- Governments are now in overdrive ,contemplating solvency plans
- Curfews , imposed against howls of objection , have leveled the infection curve
- Parents, have a newer mandate ; feeding, engaging , counseling their children all day
- Man is now trying to make better sense of his existence, far removed from the hustle and bustle of his techno world.
- Collective sobriety has descended on us, like a colossus, no?
And as many now choose courage over fear, as Covid 19 disease heralds a new decade of confusion,as medics maintain their salvo, risking life and limb,and as humanity contemplates a new social code, and as the world rumbles into an uncertain future, will human-folk ever walk tall again?
Will the world ever be the same again?
