What do you do to a visitor who has long overstayed his welcome in your house and yet you are in no capacity to order him out?
What do you do when all measures to get this stranger out of your home are proving futile and you’re gradually coming to terms with the fact that, this visitor is probably never going anywhere?
This is EXACTLY the case with Coronavirus.
From all indications, this virus has no plans of going anywhere and our best shot at dealing with it is learning to LIVE with it, restructuring our lives to accommodate it, just like we did with HIV.
According to the WHO, even if a vaccine is developed as soon as scientist hope, we may need up to five years to completely tackle this viral disease.
Five years of ‘staying home’? Five years of no ‘BIG’ funerals or Weddings? In Africa?
It’s about time countries fought for what Sweden understood and worked towards, from the very beginning – Herd Immunity. When the rest of the world was running away from Coronavirus, the Swedish were out there facing it head-on.
Though they implemented some lifestyle changes that were aimed at truncating the fast pace of the spread of the virus, the economy was never completely shut down, life did not grind to a halt and people did not have to lose their jobs.
The Swedes with this strategy are targeting that by mid-June, 40% of the people in the capital would be immune to the virus and this is enough to steadily climb to the acceptable 60% herd immunity needed for the entire population.
Many of us thought the Swedish were being reckless, their authorities being insensitive and not fearing the virus enough, but they did what many of us were too scared to do: face it squarely without completely halting their lives. From all indications, Sweden is far ahead of the virus than many of our ‘locked down’ nations.
If this virus is going to be with us for as long as scientists say, it only makes more sense to go out there and meet it. Go out there and restructure our lives around it.
It is an already established fact that life as we know it, will never be the same again, but that also directly puts the onus on us to maximize life even with this virus present.
Though the parameters for calculating how long it will take to attain herd immunity may vary from country to country, especially with cultural and behavioural differences, the option is one absolutely worth working towards.
Let’s do well to wash our hands, practice social distancing, wear our masks but enough of the hiding. Let life be as we can afford it, let’s come to terms with how our lives are bound to be.
The government of Ghana, from all indications, picked a cue from the Swedes and worked towards this after a hard-hitting two weeks on lockdown.
There’s no doubt with the lifestyle of Ghanaians, herd immunity may be achieved a lot sooner than can be calculated, and that may be a silent victory we may never celebrate, BUT ultimately, this is how you face a stubborn enemy – head-on, doing your part and doing it well and eventually adjusting to its presence in your life.
