Written By: REV. FR. MARTIN ONWUDIWE

As the world is on its knees, breathlessly looking forward to the decline and, possibly, the end of the COVID-19 pandemic and employing all measures to bringing it to a halt, one can comfortably affirm that our generation is undergoing an experience that shakes it from its real foundation, after which, definitely, things will never remain the same.

Infectious diseases are not a new phenomenon in human history. Between the 19th and 20th centuries, humanity recorded some devastating pandemics. For instance, from 1852 to 1860, about one million people died of the 3rd Cholera pandemic, which originated from India. Over 23,000 people died of the pandemic in Britain in 1854, which was the same year contaminated water was identified to be the means of transmission for the disease.

The 1889 to 1890 Flu pandemic, which originated from Central Asia, Northwest Canada and Greenland, claimed the lives of over one million people. The 6th Cholera pandemic that originated from India claimed over 800,000 lives of Indians before spreading to the Middle East, North Africa, Eastern Europe and Russia.

Between 1918 and 1920, a devastating pandemic, Spanish Flu, caused by Influenza, claimed the lives of over 50 million people out of the 500 million infected persons. The Asian Flu of 1956, which originated from China, caused 2 million deaths and today comes COVID-19 pandemic.

The mighty is indeed falling; mass graves have become common sights in Europe, Asia, America and the rest. There, medical personnel come back to duty to meet their patients covered to the head in stiff and lifeless form. The mortuaries are filled up with corpses unattended to as morticians demand for medical notes before accepting any corpse to their already filled morgues.

Experimentally, social distancing has been proven to be a very functional precaution against the spread of the virus, which gave birth to the stay-at-home order and consequently, total lockdown in most parts of the world. Different countries and races adhere to the sit-at-home order differently. In a bid to combat the deadly virus, several donations kept rolling out in cash and kind, mainly from great philanthropists. Graciously, the country is trying to heal itself of the dilapidated state of our health system.

Although the compulsory holiday seems to be renewable fortnightly, it is obviously yielding positive results. Italy has been indoors for about 6 weeks and still counting. America has recorded thousands of deaths and the end of the tunnel is yet to be seen, while in Nigeria, God is still faithful.

However, our boldness in error extends to the self-consoling patches of schools of taught littered everywhere. Some say that Africans have stronger genes resistant to genetic mutation akin to COVID-19, while others say that the hot weather of our continent is unfavorable to the spread of the virus. In all these, one wonders the source of our courage or maybe we are heading to the saying that we do not run for the rain till we are completely drained.

The unprofessional handling of the social media is another self-inflicted harm. In the Western world, bodies of victims of Coronavirus are treated with dignity and solemnly laid to rest. In our country, where, fortunately, we have recorded only few deaths, the social media have been employed as instruments of misinformation regarding the virus and the dead from the pandemic.

Individuals, families, villages and towns have been stigmatized because of the virus. Information and counter-information have become the order of the day as voice messages of unverified sources continue to fly the air, some traceable to senders with an admixture of prejudice and acrimony.

Humanity is facing a menace aggressively threatening its existence. Thus, politics should be placed aside as the dream for one Nigeria could be honestly nurtured once again. The challenge of obedience to the civil authorities is placed in our hands. Prevention, they say is better than cure but in the case of COVID-19, there is no cure yet. Therefore, prevention is our only option. Fake and unverified news may kill before the virus strikes.

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