Covid-19 The Ice Cracked

Pandemic cracked the river.

COVID-19 Throw Back

March 2020. Something is in the air. It’s called COVID-19. The World Health Organization (WHO) says it’s a pandemic, which means it knows no race, gender, culture and country. WHO recommends ways of containing it. Governments decide to lockdown.

The World Health Organization had a communication strategy. It had to, bearing in mind the magnitude of the problem. The first item on the strategy was to put the blame on China, a reason used for all previous plagues in Europe.

Dust those history books and read, if your local library is open. Europe made citizens comfortable by saying all sickness came from China and Africa.

The second item on the communication strategy was solidarity. COVID-19 was one enemy, we are in this together. There was no mention of variants. They find variants and they drop the block of ice, resulting in colour cracks. We now have ‘pure’ countries that don’t have any variants and tainted countries.

COVID-19 Variants

We were told it’s one virus. It’s an eagle, flies where it pleases. Now they are telling us  about country eagle variants: U.K. South Africa and  Brazil. They should have told us about variants in March 2020, but they didn’t, because they sold the pandemic as a humanity problem.

Here we are in March 2021, world solidarity has cracked, because of the blame syndrome. Countries like the U.K have ‘red’ lists. Travelers from certain countries are regarded as most likely to have the virus and are therefore, not welcome.

African countries and Brazil are the majority in those lists, because of what is called the ‘South African’ variant. This puts black travelers at risk at airports and border crossings.

Science Credibility

Trust science. Wear a mask. Very few people have a problem with that because we are told Covid-19 is an eagle, no visa required, but because of the gross mistake about Wuhan China, science owes us an explanation, not medical jargon but in a user-friendly language like ‘protect yourself protect others wear a mask.’

Take the so-called South African variant for example. How many people were tested to come to the conclusion that such a variant exists? 5, 8, 20? It’s a pertinent question because there is talk that Astra-Zeneca is not strong enough for this variant.

This is frightening because this will lead to a vaccine only for black people. In some countries, blacks are still regarded as half-animal, which justifies the extra force used on them. 

It is standard police procedure in the U.S. that was used to kill George Floyd in May. David Chauvin, a police offer knelt on his neck for more than nine minutes. In August last year, police shot Jacob Blake in the back seven times. It will never stop.

Continuous claims that Astra-Zeneca is not strong enough for so-called South African and Brazil variants will result in George Floyd science. It won’t come to that, will it? It will because science is highly specialized, all we have to do is trust it. Show us how it works then. For example, what is a hypothesis?

Wuhan China

Asian Americans are attacked on the streets of America because of the ‘hypothesis’ that COVID-19 came from a laboratory leak in Wuhan China.

WHO went to China in January-February this year, with the hope of confirming that hypothesis. At the end of that visit, WHO put out a press release that the hypothesis was unfounded. WHO said the virus probably came from animals, and not a Wuhan laboratory leak.

Racism against Asian Americans will continue because news channels don’t want, and will not put the record straight that the virus did not come from Wuhan China. It was a wrong hypothesis.

That’s why we need more clarity about the so-called South African variant, especially because that country has a history of medical racism, that was part and parcel of apartheid. Some people still bear the scars. 

That racism is still evident with HIV-AIDS. Only black people are on flyers, TV ads, booklets and most health materials related to HIV-AIDS, which leads to the belief that whites and people of Indian heritage don't have it. We need assurance that doctors are not going to fly to Johannesburg in droves to test black people like animals, for the so-called South African variant.

WHO some good points

WHO tries to correct its mistakes. Variant reporting for example. WHO listened and said it’s wrong to mention the geography of variants, because it leads to stigma. The media and health bodies in Canada and the U.S. are not listening, because they continue to report variants by country.

However, WHO must remind the world of its February press release that says the virus did not come from a laboratory leak in Wuhan China, probably came from animals. That's what WHO wrote.

If it doesn’t do that, it will mean that the centuries’ old communication strategy hasn’t changed, if Europe is sick, Africa and China are to blame. The pandemic continues to ravage the U.S. but scientists don’t have a U.S. variant.

This is another ‘written podcast’ by Nonqaba waka Msimang.