By Alpha Abu
The coronavirus attack has rattled the whole world. Its seemingly unstoppable mode of infection and disruptive nature on the socio-economic order of the world has left powerful nations like China, Germany and the United States, dazed and searching for answers to a rather deadly and elusive enemy. The death toll from this disease continues to rise with Italy and Spain, two developed European countries being the hardest hit. That the virus could claim the lives of hundreds of people in a single day in Spain and Italy shows just how clueless the west have become in trying to contain the spread.
Thankfully Sierra Leone has remained free of the disease. However coronavirus is the topical issue everywhere in this West African country. Conspiracy theories, a throttling rumour mill and politics have become ingredients of this unpalatable dish, quite distasteful as expected.
To tackle the threat of the virus, government designated several places as quarantine sites for inbound airline passengers, where they could stay for fourteen days before they are allowed to move into the wider society.
An APC opposition member of Parliament for a constituency covering the airport town of Lungi could have none of it; he lashed out at the government for identifying his area for quarantine purposes. He has to stand up for the interests of his constituents but given the comparative situation wherein the general well -being of the entire nation was in contention, one could be tempted to ask, ‘which supersedes which’?
Lungi is the main air gateway of the country and let’s say the parliamentarian had his wish granted by having arriving passengers put into buses and sea vessels and brought across the Freetown bay to anywhere in the western area. Or the government stuck to its guns, and ensured they remained at the Lungi hotel, which is the more rational of the two? Well the airport hotel and a couple of guest houses are now quarantine facilities for travellers from abroad.
Can’t we for a moment think beyond politics and work collectively to keep out this scourge of a disease that has surfaced in some 35 African countries already and decimated whole communities in China, Italy, Spain and Iran?
Last week, parents in cities and towns across the country, fell victims to a mischievous rumour that had been building up for days that, nurses were going to schools inoculating children. That prompted them to rush to mostly government schools to collect their kids. That created panic all over and brought the police to some schools where they tried to give some assurances to both parents and teachers. The conspiracy theory was that it was a sinister ploy to have the kids infected with corona virus. Some even claimed that several children had already died as a result of this suspicious inoculation exercise.
I even challenged a lady over her hearsay that Chinese were spotted in the company of our health workers, going from school to school, was not true. But she was so rooted in what she has been fed with, that I gave up. Listening to local radio accounts of the confrontation and confusion the poor teachers faced including threats of lynching or arson to the school buildings, you are left tasteless about the attitude of some people.
An elderly white man I once worked with described Sierra Leoneans as a very emotional people, having himself witnessed instances of confrontation amongst our people. And to be honest, the caustic and virulent posture of some of those stand-offs, can be quite irrational, as proven in the latest parents –teachers saga. Teachers are naturally quite protective of school children in their care, and the thought that they would easily put them in harm’s way, is totally out of place. It was reported that the rumour about the inoculation had actually stemmed from social media. Normally health workers going to schools for immunization exercises would be doing so on behalf of the Health Ministry. What was the primordial motive of the person(s) behind the staging of such a hoax?
Was it the act of person (s) bent on creating sheer mischief or driven by a desire to have the government seen by parents as a highly suspicious body during this corona pandemic? It must be said that the previous APC administration never entirely wriggled out of the Ebola controversies that surrounded them to the very end.
When the Bio administration placed a ban on gatherings of more than 50 people in one place and the temporary halt to church and mosque attendances, some people went about saying a very popular Christian leader was not pleased with the decision. President Bio had also ordered a three month ban on air travel to and from Sierra Leone. Commercial vehicles and tricycles (Kekeh) have been ordered to reduce their number of passengers as well.
Some are not pleased with all of these precautionary measures but a good number of people I have come across have stoutly defended the government. The other day, a young man was overheard saying the President must not rush into instituting wider and more stringent measures as he believed his actions were coming too soon and could affect the daily survival of the ordinary man. But the truth is precaution must be taken against this virus that is ravaging Europe, the Americas and parts of Asia. Its growing rate of infection in Africa is becoming worrisome too. Even the mercurial President Trump by his very initial utterances downplayed the threat posed to mighty America by coronavirus. Today his country is facing a public health crisis. Our nation bled five years ago from the deadly Ebola epidemic. Many countries came to our aid and that of other affected neighbouring countries of Liberia and Guinea. As for the loss of loved ones and the pain, we suffered alone as a nation.
Today countries like China, United States, Italy, Spain, Germany and Canada that came to our aid during the Ebola epidemic, are all engaged in battles of their own to contain, let alone eliminate the coronavirus. They are losing family members and friends on a daily basis. The entire lifestyle of their societies have been altered and turned upside down. Physically and emotionally bruised as they are now, it would be naïve to imagine that they would give us the support and attention we got from them before, should we drop our guard and allow the virus to enter Sierra Leone. So many fronts have opened up in this corona fight and they transcend borders and continents.
We are tough people though, even with the tendency to laugh away our difficult situations as demonstrated by compatriots in the diaspora who haven taken to social media, making humorous appeals, requesting relatives back home in Sierra Leone to send them monies and other gifts, reminding them that during the Ebola period, remittances reached them from overseas and it was time for reciprocal gestures. On a more serious note, we need to pray for the corona virus stricken nations.
Moreover, every well-meaning and considerate person in this country must applaud President Bio for his swift measures against any possible corona threat. As Sierra Leoneans, we must ensure conspiracy theories politics and rumours are kept away from what is government’s sincere efforts to protect us from this pandemic.
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