Flattening The Curve

Author: Elsie Danjuma

Stay safe! Stay home! Save lives! These phrases cannot be overemphasized.

Do you realize it is when you are told to do something right that all your
creative juices feel like rebelling? Most people are finding it hard to
understand how just staying at home, can prevent me, you and the whole
world from contracting a mere virus?

Why is it that the simplest instructions are the hardest to abide by? We have
been told that staying home and stopping all non-essential travels can help
mitigate the spread of the virus. Please let's all stay at home to flatten the
curve. It is said that “the virus doesn't move, we move it”. We stop moving, the
virus stops moving, the virus dies. It is that simple. This is not the time to go
‘gyming’ with our colleagues and estate buddies, it is not the time to host big
parties and ceremonies, and it is certainly not the time to congregate in large
numbers.

The curve researchers are talking about, refers to the projected number of
people who will contract Covid-19 over a period of time. To flatten the curve
means to reduce the incidence of infection over a given time.

How best can this curve be flattened when dealing with countries with
underutilized resources, lack of data base, malnutrition, hospitals with
inadequate facilities, manpower and testing? If highly developed countries
are already overwhelmed, how much more developing countries. Drastic
measures need to be put in place, and stringent methods adopted, especially
in Africa, before any lockdown is lifted, so we don't end up with a repeat of
the Spanish flu which infected over 500 million people and claimed over 50
million lives between 1918 and 1920.

Hospitals are said to be a war zone for now and should be avoided as much
as possible. Charles Bergquistic director of the public radio science show
tweeted "Your work place bathroom has only so many stalls. If everyone
decides to go the same time, there are problems. If the same number of people
need to go to the restroom but spread over several hours, it is okay". This is in
an ideal situation, think of it in this scenario, you go to the bathrooms and
there is no water to flush with so many people in line. Your guess is as good
as mine.

Let us stay safe and stay healthy, so we don’t overrun our hospitals. Melinda
Gates said "the more we do to keep ourselves and our neighbours healthy, the
better positioned we will all be to weather this challenge”.

Even as nations begin to gradually ease lockdown measures and gradually
reopen their economies in phases, we must take responsibility to ensure that
there is no major relapse that could lead to a more devastating second wave.
We can beat this together and all come out alive. Therefore, we must do well
to stay home as much as possible if we have no business being out.

Stay Alert! Stay Safe! Stay Alive!