Let’s keep our guard up on coronavirus

Let’s all take very seriously the warning by government to maintain up our guard on the Covid-19 pandemic, lest we suffer another wave of infections. There’s no doubt that with one year down in the war on Covid-19, we have valiantly fought the coronavirus disease. But our drop in infections as well as getting our jabs to tame the virus underway, are only temporary reliefs. 

Nonetheless, we can credit this good result to our strict enforcement measures, including by consistently and correctly wearing facemasks in public, keeping social distancing, and regularly washing our hands with soap and applying alcohol-based sanitisers.

But many of us have, since the partial lifting of the lockdown, dropped our guard on these SOPs and risk the virus creeping back to wreak greater havoc. This false sense of security that we’ve overcome the pandemic can lure us into another devastating wave of coronavirus pandemic. Already, Kenya, our neighbour to the East, last week announced a third lockdown with its medical services stressed and deaths soaring. 

Similarly, Rwanda, our neighbour to the south, which has adopted some of the toughest anti-Covid measures, has once more slammed another lockdown on its capital Kigali in mid-January after a surge in coronavirus cases. 
Hence, the preemptive move by government to step up surveillance at our border points is both sound and practical judgment. For it remains only a question of time before facing the fate now plaguing our neighbours. This worrying forecast demands that we stick with the current SOPs besides honouring the curfew, and curbs on public transport, which restricts passenger service vehicles to carrying only half their capacities.

Lest we forget, the first wave of coronavirus has taken its toll on us, infecting 48,220, leaving at least 334 dead, with 27,889 recoveries in homes, and another 12,559 recoveries in our health facilities. As we reported, many more remain in hospitals and thousands are battling the after-effects of the disease including stigma. Fearfully too, at least 58 of our doctors and nurses at home and abroad have died while securing the rest of us from the devastating Covid-19 pandemic. 

We also only have to remember that at the height of pandemic, both public and private hospitals were crammed, with both intensive care and high dependency units unable to cope with the cases. 
In sum, this disease is invisible and advances stealthily on us. So we’re all in this together. 
But when we all keep up our guard, we can stop the disease creeping up on us.