THIS ISN’T A NEW FIGHT, WE JUST DIDN’T KNOW IT

Last month New Zealand announced it was corona virus free after it had not recorded any new cases in the previous two weeks to June 8th.

Reporters went ahead to report that the island nation had beaten off the virus.

I wondered at the time, how anyone could claim victory over the virus when it was still raging around the world.

Note too, that since then they have reported no community infections but about 24 new cases from New Zealanders returning from abroad have been recorded. The borders still remain closed to non-citizens.

This is not to discount New Zealand’s achievement, who with full disclosure not only flattened the curved but collapsed it completely.

There are interesting parallels between New Zealand and Uganda. While other countries eased into the lockdown, New Zealand like Uganda wasted no time in going into total lockdown.

As a result about 1500 infections have been recorded and 22 people have died due to the disease.

"No one can declare victory against the disease until there is no victim in the world. Realistically that can only happen with discovery of a vaccine and mass vaccination around the world...

Until then announcements of victory against the virus are mere  political grandstanding and can’t stand the test of time.

But this is a fight we have been in before. The difference is that its effects are felt within a fortnight and its infection rate means victims pile up very quickly.

The other fight, not unlike the corona crisis, is that against climate change.

"The effects of climate change however take years or even generations to be felt, so allows for a lot of casualness and worse, outright denial of the phenomenon...

In Uganda for instance our forest cover, the last I saw, had been depleted to eight percent of the land mass last year compared to 24% in 1990.

The wild fluctuations of weather patterns is a testament to this loss.

And like the corona crisis, climate change is being denied by the wealthier people as it gets in the way of their making money. The biggest losers are the poorer people, more reliant on the natural environment for their living.

In the case of the Corona virus the lock down, while it has shut down the economy and people have lost livelihoods, has saved hundreds, maybe thousands from contracting Covid-19, the disease caused by the corona virus.

This unfortunately has led to a growth in the denial industry. The narrative goes something like, “This Corona virus is a hoax and the extended lock down is a means by which the NRM is looking to make political gains at the expense of its rivals”.

If you look closely

the argument is being made more forcefully by those who think, that even if they contracted the disease they have access to the health care required to beat it....

The lemmings in their wake are more like, ”If we die, we die.” Desperation too has set in and that is understandable.

But before you die there is the disease. While it is indiscriminate in who it attacks the medical care for various sections of the society is not the same.

 CNN presenter Richard Quest this week testified how he had contracted the disease two months ago, but is still feeling the after effects of the disease – a persistent cough, mental haziness and uncharacteristic clumsiness, all of which are hampering his productivity and standard of living. This from a man who has access to the best medical facilities and is in relatively good shape.

And the other day a medical report came out saying how contracting covid-19 has far reaching effects on the brain too.

The silver lining with the disease – if you may call it that, unlike climate change, is that it soon catches up with the denialists as we have seen in the UK and Brazil and dare we say, Burundi.

The Uganda government’s pointed looking away as our lands are denuded of their forests and wetlands are drained, will be felt when few will remember how it happened. The same goes to all other countries.

 So its not as we have not been in a fight like this before, its just the covid-19 has been quicker in how it has swept around the world. 

"But it still goes to show that there will always be people willing to put their interests ahead of the general good, to deny its existence when the proof is as clear as exhuming graves to fill them with new bodies....