Virus phobia slowly fading after months of long wait

A couple of days ago, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned that coronavirus may never go away, that we might just have to learn to live with it as we have, with the HIV and Aids virus.

When this virus was detected in Wuhan, China, and then in other countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom, I am among those that assumed a vaccine would be found in a matter of weeks.
I figured that since the virus had become a global problem, then nations would pump millions into their labs, and their scientists, some of the world’s greatest minds, would quickly find a vaccine for this perturbing virus.

Well, millions have been set aside towards finding a vaccine, but five months on, despite hundreds of scientists working round the clock, none has been found yet.

MORE INFECTIONS

And the world, ravaged by the virus, is beginning to get impatient and resentful, with governments gradually re-opening their economies at the risk of courting more infections.

Here, the fear that gripped Kenyans as cases of Covid-19 steadily rose is slowly but surely ebbing away, with increasing cases of people breaking the law in an effort to reclaim their way of life before Covid-19 disrupted it.

And so people are ignoring the dusk to dawn curfew and breaking the social distancing rule and drinking in bars in groups and holding parties in their homes.

We’re also no longer obsessively following news of the virus like we did at the beginning, when we would anxiously wait for Mutahi Kagwe’s daily briefing. Now people nonchalantly ask – “ni wangapi wamepatikana leo?”

Were this virus to stubbornly dig its heels in and decide to stay for good, we would have no option but to learn how to live with it side by side, after all, life has to go on, virus or no virus.

Our children cannot be locked up in the house forever, at some point, they will need to return to school, otherwise we will have to feed and live with them for the rest of our lives.

People also need to return to work and continue to earn a salary, while others need to revive their businesses, otherwise they and their families will die of hunger.

DESPERATE KENYANS

As it is, the situation is dire, if the harrowing stories that the media is telling of desperate Kenyans is anything to go by.

As I write this, I have just watched a story in the 9pm news of a woman whose landlord dismantled her roof and her door for non-payment of rent. She has nowhere to go, her business, she sells bedsheets, is no more. People are just not buying anymore. There are more pressing needs than bedsheets.

There was also the heart-wrenching story of the woman from Kisauni, Mombasa County, who resorted to boiling stones to feed her children since she could not afford to buy food. And yet these are just two stories, the ones that made it to television. There are many other such stories that we don’t know about.

With this in mind, it goes without saying that we cannot continue locking ourselves up in our homes indefinitely, at some point, those behind closed doors will have to get out and continue to earn their daily bread to sooth the growing hunger. Virus or no virus.

The writer is Editor, Society & Magazines, Daily Nation; [email protected]