Covid-19: Perspective, Introspective and Retrospective

The lockdown was announced officially after about a month of the index Covid-19 case in Nigeria.

Movement was restricted to the compound we live with family members as your only companion. We stocked the house with food and other daily essentials. The airspace and land space were declared closed; nobody comes in nobody goes out! The world was sort of in a hanging limbo.

Like most people all over the world, our glue to our phones was a major means to get a piece of the latest update on the global pandemic, it's spread and containment measures.

Many issues rented the air, from further fears of the spread of the disease to apprehension of possible hunger in the lockdown and the fact that a few majority have this disbelief about the whole pandemic.

The pandemic brought with it, unusual words that became usual and we had to grapple with understanding and accepting them. Words like quarantine, isolation, asymptomatic, maintaining social (maybe physical) distance with loved and unloved ones, strangers and friends alike, became the new 'usual' for us. If you must work or go out, you must be classified as an essential worker or the activity to be carried out must be an essential. The use of nose mask became a norm or else you will be arrested and fined if you go about in public without wearing one.

The most intriguing part of the lockdown was the emergence of a "new normal" slogan that permeated the globe in a matter of days.

Digitization had been in the pipeline and this happens to be the best time that we accepted the reality of same. Everything we do, all of a sudden shifted from terrestrial operations to the clouds - the internet.

The developed world seemed well prepared ahead of the pandemic in terms of digitization, so adaptation and adjustment was easy and swift. Their lockdown was truly  a lock down in the real sense of it. But for the developing world, the new reality was a struggle to adopt and accept and since we had no choice, we succumbed. Without this, you won't be able to buy, reach out, work or transact business. 

Education that had always been shared with terrestrial movement abruptly ended and moved to the clouds. The internet space was a big rescue for learning.

Corona Virus also termed as Covid-19 because it first surfaced in November 2019 in the Chinese city of Wuhan, ravaged our world without discrimination to gender, colour, race, nation and continent. No one is spared from the scourge of this disease; infants, young boys and girls, teenagers, young people and adult, middle aged,  elderly are all susceptible to contracting the deadly virus.

The virus spreads by only one means, human transmission. Human to human, or human to object then to human.

Covid-19 symptoms include but not limited to pulmonary infection leading to difficulty in breathing, high body temperature, flu, while other known symptoms show diarrhea, loss of sense of taste, loss of appetite and some peculiar to some individuals.

Individuals with underlying ailments such as high blood pressure, diabetes and the likes were considered to be under high risk of death when they contract Covid-19. Many adults above age 65 died in their numbers and so many young people have died untimely as a result of this disease.

Well, in the midst of the lockdown, a lot has happened and is still happening. Many who adjusted quickly to the pandemic and joined the developed world to shift operations to the cloud are smiling to the bank while others who embraced online learning, have additional knowledge and certificate to make them more relevant to the workforce.

Already, we are seeing the emergence of new industries particularly in the ICT (information and communication technology) providing solutions to education, social relations and work operations. Many organizations embraced  remote working as a means of containing the spread of the disease. And this has caused an increase in employees who now work from home or remotely.

Video conferencing and meetings, webinars and live streaming on the social media space are the easiest ways to reach out to people and do business.

The future of the world has arrived earlier than we imagined, so we must embrace it and adjust where necessary so that we can continue to be relevant and be more useful for ourselves.

The lockdown was necessary as there was a continuous increase in death rate and level of spread of the virus. At some point, the whole world was locked down. All flights were grounded, the rails were closed and the ports' waterways shut. For the first time since the discovery of crude oil, there was a fall in price to below production cost as the consumers were mostly indoors. Also, some other products the world thought were indispensable became unusable due to the pandemic. 

The number of infected persons in Nigeria alone is over 25,000, over 9,000 have been treated and discharged, while over 570 deaths had been recorded as at the time of this writing. Currently, the word has recorded over 10 million infections, over 5 million recoveries and over 500 thousand deaths with the United States having most casualties.

There are projections that the infection rate is on the increase because of the ease of the lockdown. 

As at the time of this writing, June 30, 2020, Nigeria is in the second phase of the lockdown with lifting of ban on local flight and interstate land travel. Students in their promotional classes are the only ones to be accepted back to schools. 

Markets are opening but with strict measures as the government ordered an opening of 3 days a week for both food market and commodity markets operation. Banks are allowed to operate full time but with 50% of the staff while they put in place all measures to curb the spread of the virus. Recreational centres and businesses are still under lockdown.

Largely, worship centres are closed in some states and the states that allowed the opening are running multiple services while maintaining social distancing.

Health workers are commended for their selfless and sacrificial service during this pandemic. Literarily, many have laid down their lives for the world to continue. They are the true heroes that deserve commendation, praises and prayers.

Analysts have projected that the pandemic will stay with us for more than expected, but our ability to manage ourselves, build our immune system and follow laid down precautions on preventing further spread of the disease will keep us safe while we maintain sanity of our world.

To win this battle we must support the World Health Organization (WHO), the Centre for Disease Control (CDC) in different nations, the governments coordinating the various stages of the disease based on professional advice from the health workers. 

We all must ensure we keep fighting by staying safe as we wash our hands regularly with soap and running water and use alcohol based sanitizer on our hands from time to time. Also, we must ensure that we maintain social distance, wear nose mask and stay home, if we can.

Finally, despite the many conspiracy theories about the invention of Covid-19 that what we are experiencing had been pre-planned, it must be noted that humanity is strong and can always win any battle.

The human spirit can hardly die without a fight, we will keep using what we have to keep ourselves alive.

Beyond Covid-19, a new normal is imminent with an increase in the use of the internet to run most of our work operations and life's affairs, we all must look forward to that new season to play our role and ensure the world keeps running, not by the plans of some men, but by the agenda of the Creator.