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Covid-19
One of our sharpest brains "shut down"The first person confirmed Covid-19 positive in South Africa occurred on 5th March 2020. So what? Well, this effectively means it is now exactly 100 days into this unprecedented pandemic event in this country. A moment of reflection. This is the 14th blog in this series and I have found it very easy to write as there is so much information “out there” driven by fear, confusion and panic. For those who have read this stuff, I am grateful. There is a higher purpose behind it and that is simply, at some point in the future, all these blogs will be committed to a coffee table book for future generations of the Elliott clan to read and ponder on an event never before experienced in human history up until the present time (it’s sheer scale far exceeds any other major virus event).
The 1
st blog was written on 29
th March and included the following entry:
“So, as I sit here and ponder on the fact that a July to September sojourn to North America has been cancelled, I can’t escape a Covid-19
The Diamond Princess... a real life learning experience for the Japanese simple question; just how did we get here? Alongside me lies a copy of the Lonely Planet Guide entitled “British Columbia and the Canadian Rockies” which I have devoured in preparation for the trip mentioned. Not to be! Nations in lock down and a global travel ban restricting the movement of humans on a scale never seen before. Is this a crazy dream or is this for real?”
Indeed, it has been a seriously bad dream for many and given the beating our currency has taken, I wonder whether foreign travel is on the cards for many of us in the future. One can only do the sensible thing and cling to positive dreams. After all if, one’s dreams don’t scare the crap out of you, they simply aren’t big enough!
The statistics about Covid-19 are mostly boring and follow a predictable mantra but, every now and then, one hears or reads something that triggers a need to pay attention. The WHO dashboard indicates that as of 09h26 on 29
th May 2020 there are 5,6 million “confirmed” cases with 356,254 deaths. This is where perspective is needed. According to Sky News Australian journalist Alan Jones, in one of
Covid-19
Germany. People power speaks to the political establishment his broadcasts (and he is a seriously good, no bullshit bloke to listen to),says that of that number of confirmed cases, 98.3 percent are regarded as mild! If that is the case, then what we are witnessing on a global scale is an over reaction to this virus on a monumental scale driven largely by, initially fear, and subsequently panic and ongoing ignorance by politicians. The voice of the clever scientists, epidemiologists, actuaries and the medical fraternity are largely ignored as the likelihood escalates of non-Covid -19 related deaths far exceeding those of the virus itself. As that wise sage and Greek philosopher, Socrates, once said: “I know that I know nothing”.
No one can dispute that hindsight is an exact science but looking at the Covid-19 experience of different countries portrays a compelling story. Starting with
Italy which was a virus trail blazer in Europe. The Italian national health authority has recently gone public and reported that 96%!o(MISSING)f their virus fatalities had “previous medical conditions” predominantly in the elderly category. Only 1.1 percent of their fatalities involved people younger than 50 years of age and 57 percent were folk older than 80. Nearly half of cases registered
Covid-19
Boris, out of hospital, bewildered, taking on damage control in May were in old age homes. Joining the dots confirms what is widely known; this virus affects older folk and is particularly dangerous for those with existing medical conditions. Special attention and effort should be directed by Governments to keep them (us) at home. Is this happening? The
United Kingdom must rank as a serious contender for the worst virus “response strategy” award if and when this competition is run. Boris, the bumbling, Johnson must have called Trump to chew the fat on what they ought to do about this pesky little virus thing. The rest, as they say, is history with Boris himself contracting the virus and ending up in intensive care. As the situation turned for the worse in the UK, the responses and garbled messages from the Govt. was on par with Rowan Atkinson at his finest. Tragically, many more people in the UK have lost their lives than would have been the case had Boris heeded the advice of very clever people at Oxford University who predicted dire infections and deaths (which have, thankfully, not materialised to date). The latest saga of one of Boris’s “advisors” doing a 200km trip to drop the kids with
Covid-19
Cartoonists tell it better than most Mum and Dad has caused outrage in Britain. Boris’s message; “come on chaps, just get over it.” The
USA has not exactly covered itself in glory. Donald did not need this virus to trip up the booming US economy which would have almost guaranteed his re-election later in 2020. His reaction and pronouncements changed almost daily and all the while his country was witnessing an explosion of infections, mainly in New York state. It would appear that they closed the front gate (banning flights from many countries) but left the back gate open too long (flights from Europe). What was astonishing was how ill prepared the World’s most advanced country was in terms of the infrastructure needed to deal with testing, contact tracing and enough hospital beds. Donald, unperturbed, simply upped the ante by blaming China for gifting the World with Covid-19 and whilst few were watching, he fired a number of top dogs in Washington who presumably weren’t following his script. He got grumpy with the WHO telling them to get stuffed and threatening to withdraw US funding. Going into lock down mode world wide was tough but it would appear that easing restrictions and freeing up the economy is no walk in the park. There is a battle royal going on as different states across the US determine their own interpretation and application of easing restrictions.
Up until now
South America has been off the radar screen to some extent. No longer, as
Brazil has rapidly moved up the ladder as a new epicentre of the virus. This is a country with its last three Presidents, either jailed for corruption, or in court (at least they deal with their rotten, thieving politicians). Bolsonaro, the President for the time being, has opted to describe it as a “little flu” and not surprisingly two health ministers have left since the virus arrived. Hospitals are at bursting point with 411,000 infections and close to 26000 deaths thus far. And then a country,
Japan, plays by a different rule book and achieves incredibly low fatalities. They did not impose a lock down and restaurants, pubs, hair dressers and the like stayed open. It does not have a national centre for disease control and no smart apps were used for contact tracing. Reasons? They simply don’t know and there was no silver bullet. They have a culture of face mask wearing and a low obesity rate. They are a disciplined nation and have 50,000 nurses trained for infection tracing. Critically the cruise ship, Diamond Princess, was in their waters at an appropriate time and they were able to study the rapid spread of the virus on that vessel and learn from it. It raised huge awareness across the country of what the virus could do.
Here in
South Africa, we seem to lurch from one moment of indecision to the next with Ramaphosa seemingly content to add a few sound bites every now and then, and then leaving it up to a bunch of bumbling “Command Council” politicians to fill in the gaps. Confusion is the order of the day and frustration levels across the country have boiled over. The economy continues to implode and one wonders how long it will take to recover? As a country we were praised for our initial response and most citizens bought into it. Events of recent weeks underpinned largely by Govt. action or inaction have wiped out most of that goodwill. Many simply do not trust these incompetent people supposedly “leading” but in reality imposing their own agenda best described as covert oppression. The harsh manner in which the police and army have behaved has increased national anger. This suppression has not gone unnoticed and this is a statement from no less than the United Nations
; “It is not surprising and more than a little embarrassing that the United Nations has gone so far as to name South Africa as one of the countries abusing the lock down with gratuitous violence. It said it had received reports of “police using rubber bullets, tear gas, water bombs and whips, to enforce social distancing, especially in poor neighbourhoods,” the Reuters news agency reported. The 39 incidents it had reviewed included “murder, rape, use of firearms and corruption” Georgette Gagnon, director of field operations said. Emergency powers should not be a weapon governments can wield to quash dissent, control the population, and even perpetuate their time in power,” she said.” Did Ramaphosa make mention of this or apologise to the people of South Africa? Unforgivable!
No blog update would be complete without mention of
China. Where does one start? Whilst the World’s attention is turned elsewhere, the CCP quietly goes through the motions of rubber-stamping laws which will remove any semblance of democracy in Hong Kong. More than 60 nations have now aligned to take on China by way of an independent investigation into the origins of Covid-19. The Chinese are being less than complementary in their responses to Australia’s efforts to get to the bottom of the virus origins. Here’s a question which remains unanswered: Why did the virus not spread quickly from Wuhan to the rest of China? With a population of 1.2 billion people interconnected by way of mass transport options, how did this virus not hit other regions of the country?
“You cannot swim for new horizons until you have courage to lose sight of the shore.” – William Faulkner
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