COVID-19: THROUGH INSTITUTIONS AND THE AFTERMATH
First of all, I commiserate with the worst COVID-19 hit nations and extend deep felt sympathies to all those that have lost a loved one to the disease and for those that lost the battle to it themselves, may their souls rest in peace.
A pandemic by its nature overwhelms many regions. The healthcare systems around the world are always prepared to deal with health-related emergencies but this time around, coronavirus came in like a flood.
I was upbeat reading Kai Fu Lee’s book “AI superpowers” especially about how AI and big data are poised and hoped to transform lives, extending to healthcare itself.
Generally, Uganda started 2020 with excitement and hope, as manifested in cross-over overnights leading to 2020 and the Newvision Magazine “Uganda In 2020”. In the magazine, save for the economic forecast and FID (Final Investment Decision), all was prospectively promising. I stand to be corrected, but I honestly believe that most 2019/20 crossover overnights proclaimed 2020 as the year of the Lord.
Coronavirus, according to several reports, started in China-Wuhan, Hubei Province Dec 01, 2019 but didn’t gain international media attention until sometime later. A detailed timeline is well documented via the following link https://www.thinkglobalhealth.org/article/updated-timeline-coronavirus. The world, especially United States, has not taken this narrative without questions as reported in the following link https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/15/trump-us-coronavirus-theory-china. A section of experts in the United States, thinks that there’s more to the origin of this virus in relation to patient Zero, and that the Wuhan wet markets is a cover up and that Chinese administration could have saved more lives, if they released the alerts timely. Guardian story reports that it took china 1 whole week before they could officially delve into coronavirus outbreak information. The US president, froze funding to the WHO citing collusion of WHO with china scientists and doing “a bad job” as concerns COVID-19 pandemic.
The management of coronavirus pandemic evokes memories from Ben Bernake’s book “Courage to Act”, where he recounts of how the Federal Reserve Bank (FED) took it upon itself to save the US economy in the wake of the 2007/08 financial meltdown. It is evident that human beings are wiser retrospectively, as he (Ben Bernanke) himself admits that if the FED had not overlooked the events leading to first tremors of the crisis, the impact of the meltdown would have been better dealt with.
At its climax, the Chinese rushed in with serious measures, including total lock-down to contain the virus, as some international media houses were more overly concerned by human rights and ethics surrounding the lock-down rather than the virus itself. All the above got me reflecting on Dambisa Moyo’s book, “Edge of Chaos” and where COVID-19 leaves the global economy.
Coronavirus: Fake News and leadership counterintuitive remarks about COVID-19
Fake News
Freedom of communication is a double edged sword and with it comes fake-news, compounded by ubiquitous social media. Several concoctions and homemade remedies to treat COVID-19 Disease, were awash the online word and still remain at large, but the Word Health Organization has purposed to debunk them all. From 5G network waves being the trigger of coronavirus, to a whole range of concoctions. You can interest yourself via the following link https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/advice-for-public/myth-busters.
Painful however, was Donald J. Trump’s remarks about Chloroquine as a promising drug that could treat COVID-19, a remark that caused loss of lives check this link https://time.com/5808688/chloroquine-phosphate-coronavirus-death/ . Scientists have since established that the drug did not help COVID-19 patients recover and was instead associated with heart problems check this link https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2020/04/15/coronavirus-chloroquine-test-halted-drug/2983129001/.
Counter-intuitive remarks
The president of Mexico – Bolsonaro branded COVID-19 as a simple flu. Bolsonaro, would a few days later, join Anti lockdown protestors as this link reported it https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-52351636.
John Pombe Magufuli - President of Tanzania, is said to have left churches and mosques open in the coronavirus pandemic insisting that healing starts from such churches. A few days down the road, on April 17, 2020, Tanzania recorded 53 cases in just 24 hours, as reported in the following link https://www.pmldaily.com/news/2020/04/covid-19-crisis-tanzanias-cases-rise-to-147-after-53-test-positive-on-friday.html .
In Nigeria, a poll revealed that 26% of people thought that COVID-19 couldn’t catch God’s children…https://www.bbc.com/pidgin/51959393. Burundi’s zero cases was blamed on lack of testing kits by fake news until the government dispelled the lies.
Uganda had her share too. Rebecca Kadaga, the Speaker of Uganda’s Parliament, in a twist that will perhaps never be understood, rushed Prof. Sarfraz K. Niazi and Magoola to the president of Uganda. Prof. Niazi, in what seemed a misrepresentation of his product was reported to have come up with the treatment of COVID-19 and that he had donated his patent to Uganda. It has since been established that what Kadaga passionately marketed as treatment for COVID-19 is a sanitizer known as “Covanil”. The speaker has shamelessly refused to admit that she ever called Covanil a COVID-19 treatment.
A one Ugandan Robert Mijumbi, like a F16 fighter jet coming to rescue lost soldiers, came out in YouTube video and assured Ugandans that he had found cure for COVID-19 and HIV. He authored a letter to the minister of health in relation to his “study” about the same. A few days after, he was arrested by Uganda Police Force. An NDA official intimated to the media that his claims were unfounded.
Young people’s complacency about COVID-19 was met by COVID-19 + young people themselves telling them to be more careful and avoid contracting the virus and that they were not immune.
Discrimination and Racism
Racism sometime takes on a subconscious dimension where racists, on their own don’t think of themselves as racist. But perhaps Donald J. Trump’s insistence on branding Coronavirus a Chinese virus may have done more harm than good. It may have inadvertently invoked phobia against Chinese and one can only imagine how china towns in the US would have coped with such remarks.
Reports spread like wild fire online, concerning discrimination of Africans caught up in the global lockdown while in china. Check the link https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-52309414.
In Uganda, as may be the case elsewhere, individuals who have defeated corona virus have been discriminated against and have faced a hard time, trying to reintegrate back into their respective societies. The world wasn’t in short supply of racism and discrimination as listed by Wikipedia. Check this link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_incidents_of_xenophobia_and_racism_related_to_the_2019%E2%80%9320_coronavirus_pandemic
State, Security forces and Church amid Humanitarian Crises
The State
The state is faceless but its presence is generally felt even in the remotest parts of the nation. A state has an entire ministry of preparedness and disaster management, which was at the time of writing, battling the desert locusts in some of the regions in Uganda. The COVID-19 pandemic, which initially came in a health crisis, soon became an emergency when the lock down was declared. A few irregularities notwithstanding, most citizens have commented MoH for brave leadership in dealing with the virus.
It has been able to put together a COVID-19 National Taskforce to work together with the Office of the Prime minister to extend relief food to vulnerable members of society who were surviving on hand-to-mouth daily payments, and whose livelihood was put at risk by the COVID-19 lockdown safety measures.
Security Forces
In Uganda, indeed as elsewhere, except in Brasil, security forces – irregularities notwithstanding, have been invaluable in enforcing the lockdown and curfew guidelines, distribution of relief food and manning country borders, food all aimed to thwarting the spread of COVID19 cases.
When asked by NBS Journalist Simon Kagwanjala, whether the lockdown was legal or otherwise, Hon Rebecca Kadaga- Speaker of Parliament Uganda put it plainly (sic), “Defacto - the country is under state of emergency. Dejury- no one prepared for it.”
The Church
The church is an indispensable institution in human life, so much so that online worship services have been conducted to minister to people of God. The church on the other hand, has been met by indifference from sections of Ugandans, concerning her insistence on collecting tithes and offerings via mobile money platforms. Crises are times when a church is expected to give back, considering the gravity of the lock-down on the population particularly, in this case. Pastor Yiga Augustine of Kawaala plainly put it that church is a business in away, and will be negatively affected by COVID-19. A few days later, he would be arrested over his utterances deemed misleading as regards COVID-19. Some that provided relief in the earnest, include the miracle center cathedral among others, and these were highly commended for their acts of kindness.
COVID-19 LOCKDOWN
By March 15, 2020, a third of the human population was under coronavirus lockdown https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/world-news/covid-19-one-third-of-humanity-under-virus-lockdown/articleshow/74807030.cms?from=mdr . By April 9, 2020 Econometrics by World Economic Forum feared that the impact of COVID-19 lock down on the economy would outstrip the 2007/08 recession https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/04/mapping-covid19-recession/ .
All had been generally bearable until the government of Uganda, on April 4, 2020, slapped an extension of 21 days lockdown & curfew till May 5, 2020. The middle class seems to have been forgotten in all the measures put across to support vulnerable groups. Most of these people will have no jobs after the lockdown is lifted. While everyone was doing their best to survive the lockdown, news that the parliament of Uganda self-allocated UGX10Bn, with each MP taking UGX20m to fight COVID-19 didn’t go down well with the public. This came at a time when there was an outcry of limited Personal Protective equipment (PPEs). Most members of the public couldn’t buy the logic behind this allocation, even when the speaker of parliament. Hon. Rebecca Kadaga, tried hard to provide some explanation. This was a moral issue, before anything else as Rt. Col. Dr. Kizza Besigye put it via an NTV Interview.
Some members of Parliament, Ntugamo Municipality MP, Gerald Karuhanga and Erute North MP, Jonathan Odur went ahead and petitioned court to block this allocation https://www.softpower.ug/covid-19-two-mps-petition-court-to-block-shs-10bn-parliament-allocated-itself/. Condemning the self allocation wasn't enough without legal action.
COVID-19 Aftermath and Reflections
The Aftermath of COVID-19 will indubitably have an indelible mark on human behavior and culture. Irrespective of despair, confusion and anxiety reigned onto human populations by COVID-19, this dark cloud has come with a silver lining with it as well. May following reflections stick with us.
Minimum Wage in LMICs: Lowest cadres in the economic categorization are hit the hardest amidst hardships and their plight is mostly listened to, only after demonstrations and spirited noise-making.
Social security/ Safety net needs to be redefined: Rt. Col Dr. Kizza Besigye thought that NSSF would come in to save the day but then he was told that NSSF, under the law, is not mandated to respond in circumstances like COVID-19 pandemic.
Excessive Force by security forces is unwarranted during Humanitarian situations as such are times for the people to see the state’s compassion and leadership.
We are still in short supply of servant leaders: Parliament was not very keen in adhering to COVID-19 safety guidelines by WHO and MoH. Security officers were seen mingling freely with crowds and bundling offenders onto their pickup trucks unconcerned by a possibility of exposure to asymptomatic cases of COVID-19. Security forces need protection when faced with COVID-19 pandemic since they aren’t robots.
Allocation of the Resource Envelope needs to be revisited. Money needs to be allocated to sectors that impact many Ugandans and spur economic growth. Self-allocation of UGX 10Bn by MPs for fighting COVID-19, amidst shortage of PPEs and a starving populace.
Some of the developed countries like United States failed at providing COVID-19 leadership during the pandemic and that racism and discrimination is not a thing of the past. Details in this link https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/indepth/opinion/america-isn-failing-state-failed-experiment-200420134026075.html?__twitter_impression=true
Health workers don’t want glory. They just want their jobs and working conditions to be protected—in every sense, as MUSAUB KHAN articulates in his article https://newrepublic.com/article/157354/problem-heroizing-health-care-workers-like
There is urgent need to address Inequality and equalize opportunities through education. The World Economic Forum 2020 report “Social mobility index report” stressed that education is an equalizer of opportunities and further stated that gov’ts around the world could create more wealth by curbing inequality.
CONCLUSION
In the pursuit of self-actualization and fulfillment, it is possible to get out of touch with our humanity and reality, just like O'neill character in Simon Sinek’s book, Leaders Eat Last. Do not wait to be reminded by a crisis like COVID-19 pandemic. At the core of human beings, stripped of our positions, socio-economic affiliations etcetera., remains humanity. Do not get distracted, the “circle of safety” is sometimes all you have, when pushing comes to shove.
