Opinion

Coronavirus: The lockdown we don’t need by Kelvin Davies

I woke up today at about 8am since we are all sitting at home and like I do first thing every morning, I checked my phone for the time and then checked my twitter app. In of the first tweets, I saw Wale Ozolua’s tweet with a graphic design and a hashtag #LockDownOyo and I smiled. I knew the agenda for the day and like a well coordinated campaign I saw other handles tweeting the hashtag and by noon they started personalizing it. Now the call for a lockdown is not without reason and it is completely fine. But like those who believe the state should shutdown there are those with dissenting opinions, and I am one of such.

I listened to His Excellency this morning, while he was speaking on the pandemic. He was asked what the government’s response to the calls for a lock down is. He said and I quote “all options are on the table and we will consult with professionals and explore all logical solutions”.

The Corona virus is rather novel to medical experts and most are trying new things, to best manage the situation. The media has daily fed us with tales of people falling ill and the number of deaths. The whole world is in a crisis, nations and states are trying new ideas to contain the pandemic and incorporating actions, relevant to their societies. We’ve seen America, Canada and the likes initiate a total shutdown of cities and have doled out palliative measures for its citizens, to cushion the effects of the shutdown. These are trillion dollar economies and even these ones have faced issues in the process of putting this in place.

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Here we have once again shown our propensity for not thinking for ourselves and outrightly copying what worked in the West, forgetting that our realities and societies are very different. You want everyone in the poverty capital of the world to go into a mandatory lockdown with no clear plan for palliatives. Over the days, we have seen politicians giving election style palliative measures that will not last a family of 4, for two days and splashed all of social media with pictures.

My question is how long can this be sustained? We have also seen images of people fighting to collect their share of government palliatives in a way that puts them more at risk of catching the virus. Let’s not even start with overzealous security personnels seeing this as an opportunity to further abuse the masses. But hey, let’s lock down Oyo, isn’t it?

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What has the government been doing? Like H.E Seyi Makinde said this morning we are exploring alternatives, to ensure that our people are well catered for. He also sighted the example of Czech Republic, where people are mandated to wear a face mask if they have to come out at all. Now this really got me thinking. Most of the VIPs who have tested positive so far are asymptomatic. I spoke to one of the doctors treating the index case at the Agbami Chest Hospital last Saturday and he mentioned that the patient up till Saturday was still asymptomatic. I think what this means is that that we may have more asymptomatic patients in Nigeria than we imagined. As at today, the average citizen can’t get tested until they start to show symptoms how then do we identify positive cases with a vast majority of people being asymptomatic?

Let’s put some logic into this and kill our fears. If Czech republic have people wearing face masks mandatorily if they have to go out could that be a solution for us? This virus gets into our body through our mouth, nose and eyes. A person wearing a facemask will less likely touch their nose or mouth and that significantly reduces the risk. As of today, the state government has mandated all transport workers and parks to have hand sanitizers, a directive which they have mostly complied with. How about we initiate a mandatory washing hand policy along at markets and all public places? The truth is we can’t accurately say that a lockdown is a solution in the long term while it remains an option for the government. Let us look at alternative logical ways to tackle this common enemy.

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Nigeria is not the poverty capital of the world just on paper it’s a reality and we can’t use social media giveaways to judge this or we can, looking at the number of people under each giveaway tweet. However, we are a people grossly disconnected from the reality on the street. How long before there is a revolt because people are hungry and the government isn’t providing enough palliatives to get to everyone and people can’t earn their daily bread?
You for your mini flat or three bedroom go be the first person wey area boys go attack cos you fresh and e be like say you hold small. We should look at this logically, considering every factor instead of blindly calling for a lockdown.

IFRAME SYNC

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OyoAffairs

Oyo Affairs is an independent news media with the main focus on Oyo state news, politics, current events, trending happenings within and around Oyo state, Nigeria

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