By Isaac Asabor
If there are manners of greetings that have at this festive season taken the place of “Good morning”, “Good afternoon” and “Good evening”, it is unarguably “Merry Christmas in arrears” and “Prosperous New Year in Advance”.
However, concerning the one that says, “Prosperous New Year in Advance”, one is no doubt cynical in the face of COVID-19 as to how prosperous will it be, particularly if the fear of what the pandemics did to everyone in 2020 comes to mind. There is an idiom that says “If wishes were horses, beggars would ride”. The reason for the foregoing view cannot be farfetched as the idiomatic expression aptly means that to wish for prosperity does not come by literarily standing hand akimbo and mouth age. After all, an African proverb says “Work is the antidote for poverty”. Prosperity does not come by prayer and mere wish without complementary efforts been exerted to achieve it. Prosperity cannot come to anyone by hoping and wishing for things to just happen. I know that there is miracle, but how often does it happen in a man’s life?
Analyzed from the foregoing perspective, what the idiomatic expression actually means in this context is that one should work towards 2021 in order to remain healthy and become prosperous. After all, it is said that “Health is Wealth”. No one that will resort to recklessly gambling with his health, like living himself or herself vulnerable to COVID-19 infection should be talking about prosperous New Year.
At the time of typing this piece, the U.S. was really at a critical time in confronting the coronavirus pandemic, as the number of new cases was soaring even as the first 1.9 million Americans have been vaccinated, according Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious disease expert.
Fauci said U.S. health authorities are monitoring mutant strains that have shown up in Britain and South Africa. Officials in those two countries say that the vaccines developed by drug makers Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna will protect against the new strains, but Fauci said that U.S. researchers will be doing their own tests to make sure.
As at the time of typing this piece, the U.S. has recorded more than 332,000 deaths from the coronavirus and nearly 19 million infections, with both figures more than in any other country, according to the Johns Hopkins University.
In as much as I am in this context expressing my condolences to the families and friends of those who have lost their loved ones, by each passing day in America, it is saddening to say that the end is not yet in sight as the country has in the last few days been recording COVID-19 related deaths. That is indeed a catastrophe, and potential crisis to those left behind, and as such, we must here in Nigeria never disparage this disease that is pandemic in nature.
For the sake of clarity, lexicographers define “Pandemic as “an epidemic occurring worldwide, or over a very wide area, crossing international boundaries and usually affecting a large number of people”.
According to Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, World Health Organisation (WHO), in a video message on Sunday, December 27, 2020, the pandemic caused by the coronavirus “will not be the last pandemic, and epidemics are a fact of life.”
The world must learn from COVID-19 and address “the intimate links between the health of humans, animals and the planet,” Tedros said in his remarks for the first International Day of Epidemic Preparedness.
“For too long the world has operated on a cycle of panic and neglect,” he said. “We throw money at one epidemic and when it’s over, we forget about it and do nothing to prevent the next one.”
Tedros said every country needs to invest in what he called the supply of care: the ability to avoid, detect and mitigate all kinds of emergencies.
To those that are suffering “Covidiocy”, it is enough in this context to inform that COVID-19 as a pandemic is real. Before buttressing the foregoing word in quote, it is expedient to say that the word simply means “The flouting of COVID-19 public health guidelines”. It is literarily an emerging psychological ailment associated with those that are pessimistic about the reality of COVID-19.
To be frank, the number of those that tested positive and those that died could have been worse than what the world is witnessing today, if not that measures were taken earlier on, which, undoubtedly, saved many lives. These measures, or similar measures, have been instituted in many other jurisdictions with good effect. They have been endorsed by leading international healthcare authorities. It is against the foregoing backdrop that Nigerians who wish to have a prosperous 2021 should continue to adhere to these measures,
Be that as it may, there are some Nigerians that have subtly been spreading the fake news that the existence of COVID-19 is not real. To those doubting Thomases, they should not in any way ignore the fact that the discussions with regard to COVID-19 have been mainly based on facts. More so, there have been disagreements about lockdown or restrictions of movement due to the second wave of the pandemic which reared its ugly head few weeks ago. The somewhat advocacy is been driven by the need to restart the economy. In as much as it is expedient to restart the economy, it is equally salient to say that the economy will have to be restarted at the point where it would be adjudged to be safe to do so.Most importantly, it is germane to say that an effective vaccination programme is the fastest way in the situational context of Nigeria to achieve herd immunity.
It is not unexpected that SARS-CoV2 (Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2), will continue to spread across Nigeria until the government develop ‘herd immunity’. Herd immunity may be defined as the resistance to the spread of an infectious disease within a population that is based on pre-existing immunity of a high proportion of individuals (60 to 70 per cent) because of previous infection or prior vaccination.
Most experts, based on information gleaned from proven and peer-reviewed sources, agree that allowing the population to develop herd immunity by unchecked spread of the virus through a given country will be disastrous. Many persons will die and will die unnecessarily. Against the backdrop of the foregoing, it is expedient to say that Nigeria is not in any way immuned from the pandemic.
To fellow Nigerians, there is need to be safe and act sensibly even if the governments have not been seen to be committed towards the implementations of the rules and regulations put in place in ensuring that everyone obey extant protocols on COVID-19. We should all put in efforts to protect ourselves and protect our loved ones by adhering to the guidelines given by the authorities. COVID-19 is real and is a serious public-health crisis that should not be trivialized.
To my view, it is only when we obey COVID-19 Protocols that the greeting, “Prosperous New Year in Advance Wishes” will become salutary, and then have a prosperous New Year.
