Covid-19 will devastate the continent unless we are ruthless in fighting it

Disconnected as we are to the rest of the world, the novel coronavirus, Covid 19, took long to get to Africa. But have no doubt, this virus will devastate this continent unless we are ruthless in the way we deal with it. We are vulnerable, with our relatively large HIV infection, our susceptibility to many infectious diseases and the poor state of our health systems. If ever there was a time when personal responsibility was paramount in tackling this challenge, this is it. Government’s capacity to deal with this crisis is limited. Do not forget that government has minimal testing kits so it does not really know the full extent of the epidemic.

That said, the numerous advisories the government is giving on the virus are not suggestions which one can ignore like we do government instructions. They need to be taken seriously. They would however be more useful if their “whys” were explained clearly. That way compliance would not be mechanical. Why regularly wash hands with soap thoroughly?  Why use sanitiser? Why sanitise surfaces? Why not touch your face? Why self-quarantine? Why stay at home? The absence of explanations means that most people do not understand the cost of non-compliance. Yet it is broad compliance that will inevitably determine whether we will arrest the spread of the virus long enough to give the government time to manage it’s spread sufficiently and stop it from decimating our population.