A Pause to Reflect
Under reported is the lack of preparedness and recent Covid case spikes in Nepal.
The UK, USA, Brazil, Italy, South Africa and France have in the past 16 months experienced various levels of significant waves of infections - with differentiating and commonly shared levels of cause, reaction and management.
What has been learnt for effective action to be taken in India, or has the proverbial horse already bolted there?
A shared causative factor to accelerate the massive spread of Covid 19 is the interference and prioritisation of politics in several nations over sensible public health management. The utter disregard for social distancing and the obvious lack of using anti-Covid protective gear, seen in masses of people gathering for election rallies, should have spelt the increased likelihood for the endemic disaster that is to come, or already has passed.
Politically toned rallies driven on by strong societal and religious beliefs can contribute to outbreaks of infection. Where such clusters have arisen, the ineffectual and untimely fencing of infection hotspots, for whatever reasons, has encouraged this rather infectious Covid 19 to travel to hitherto unaffected regions, for the spiked organism to continue to roam, chomp and mutate on more human hosts.
Local transmission of cases create so many subsequent pathways of infection in a multiplier effect.
Another observed Canary in the coal mine syndrome, before cities and countries are engulfed in whatever waves of Covid that come and go, is the continuing and unrectified lack of organisation of authorities that oversee and are responsible for management of the pandemic. Such utter distractions can be in the power driven arguments between individual States in a Federation and the central government - as to who is responsible for whom, what and how. Another debacle can be seen in the Australian Federal Government since Covid 19 began, leaving many tasks to the various Australian state governments - and when it took on its current responsibility to roll out vaccinations, it has shown its ineffectualness and lack of ability to even do this.
Increasingly there is also the factor of authorities and governments in denial, about facing head on the realities and challenges of Covid infections breaking out in their respective nations. Some of it can be attributed to the mindsets of their powerful leaders, like in Brazil. Other kinds of denial which later go on to bite such governments is their emphasis on economic benefits and financial imperatives, which I also understand and appreciate. An interesting scenario is faced by the Japanese Government in delaying and still hanging on the holding of the Tokyo Olympics 2020 in July this year. The ever changing of deadlines for enhanced air travel can be a persistent game play, dependent on cluster outbreaks, breaches of Covid contamination when quarantine venues are not handled properly and delays in being able able to vaccinate masses of people.
A no brainer, as to why a society faces a situation like India today, is the overwhelming lack of public infrastructure, supply of anti-Covid health antidotes and trained human resources. We cannot blame developing countries for being stuck with such serious disadvantages on the cusp of a pandemic, but for so called rich nations to have such problems and not rectify them as soon as possible, is unforgiving.
After around sixteen months of battling Covid 19, the world seems to be overly relying on newly developed and evolving vaccinations as the primary solution. Most vaccines, if you want them, have already become commodities which have supplies manipulated and controlled by manufacturers, the developed nations and the politically connected. What if mutated strains overcome the efficacy and dependency of such vaccines?
Many nations are focusing treating symptoms instead of putting more resources to find a cure - that is a big ask which takes more than a few years, I do admit.
The more wealthy in any society have more means of avoiding infected, but the integrated nature of a powerful Coronavirus spread can also not discriminate. In nations such as India, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand, migrant workers, paid the lowest possible rates per hour, are employed extensively in households, markets, food stalls and restaurants. The chain of transmission can be strengthened in connection amongst different activities of a day's routine for anyone, rich, middle class or poor.
So when you reflect on your own community or country, what is the score you will give to sense whether a serious outbreak of Covid is coming upon your horizon?
Politicisation above Health
Denial by Leadership
Cultural Imperatives
Organisational Ineptness
Infrastructural Deficiency
Inherent Lack of Relevant Supplies
Lack of Training for Frontliners
Corruption and misuse of public monies
Religious Imperatives
Inconsistent Exemptions to Rules and Policy
Social Structure and Demographics
Mixed and Changing Messaging by Authorities
IN the Asia-Pacific region, are there couplings of neighbouring nations that can be utilised in a beneficial manner to help each other out? I am referring to possibly Papua New Guinea-Australia, Japan-China and Malaysia-Singapore. Effective leadership is the common factor required to resolve this Covid crisis. A good leader trumps over the worst of home politics, culture, poor bureaucracy, lack of resources, corruption, varying medical advice and geopolitics.
#yongkevthoughts
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