A year after Covid-19 arrived in Kenya, it marches on in its inexorable spread across the world.
Virtually every significant aspect of life globally has been upended, and it is certain our lives, now and in posterity, shall never be the same. My first international travel since the Covid-19 pandemic broke out made this new world vividly apparent.
I travelled in March 2021 from Switzerland to Sierra Leone for some essential work, transiting through Belgium. Having been on the frontline in the Ebola response in Sierra Leone between 2014-17, I knew the disruption to travel, trade and livelihoods diseases of international concern cause.
However, the onerous requirements and costs of travel in this pandemic are much more exacting. I had to do expensive Covid-19 tests before travel, and on return, and complete passenger locator forms in advance of travel for all the three countries. A colleague travelling on the same mission from Britain was required to do a total of four tests for the round trip, and stay in mandatory isolation upon return.
The devastation wrought by this virus on travel, tourism, airports, airlines and related businesses was unmistakable on my trip. Airports that handled hundreds of passenger flights each day now had tens, all fitting in a single frame of those electronic displays you see in airports. In times gone by, these flight displays scrolled through several frames for just a few hours of flights.
Sparse passenger numbers meant there was plenty of room on the planes, as well as in airport lounges, and waiting areas. Immigration, check-in, baggage, duty-free and the myriad services that facilitate travel were lightly manned, leaving me to wonder whether the millions of people laid off work from these sectors will ever get their jobs back. Whereas wealthy nations are providing unemployment benefits to their citizens who have lost jobs, developing countries such as Kenya have virtually no unemployment social security for people that must now fend for themselves while out of work.
Serious thought must be applied to decide whether destroying so many businesses and lives through lockdowns really saves lives, or leads to more deaths. All lives hold equal value, and coronavirus has devastated families of the about 2,000 people it has killed in the last one year in Kenya, and many more in other nations.
Every life lost was precious and any effort to save lives is worthwhile. However, it is apparent in wealthy, as well as developing countries, that lockdowns for the last one year have not stopped the spread of the virus and ensuing deaths. Nearly every nation on earth still has new cases today.
Lockdowns have resulted in losses of millions of jobs and collapse in incomes. This has certainly caused deaths through malnutrition of children, illnesses people cannot afford to treat, depression, suicide, and other indirect effects.
The long-term impact of children dropping out of school, child abuse, deepening poverty in households with no income, and related morbidity and mortality, will likely be massive. It therefore behoves governments to promote proven methods of slowing coronavirus spread, such as maintaining hygiene, testing, and protecting healthcare staff so they can treat those who fall ill.
Lockdowns should be shunned as they have proven ineffective, but devastate lives of people and cause more deaths.
My trip to Sierra Leone went well and illustrated that the nation learnt well from dealing with the Ebola epidemic. The systems we in the United Nations, together with the US Centres for Disease Control, public Health England, and government of Sierra Leone established were working well with robust diseases surveillance. This is a well-coordinated public health emergency operations centre, and application of standard operating procedures.
Contact tracing, testing, and issuing of Covid-19 certificates by Sierra Leone for travellers was seamless, complete with online booking and payment, sample collection at the pace of residence of the test subject to avoid crowding in facilities, and expeditious issuance of results. There is no lockdown but hygiene practices such as hand washing are rigorous, and public awareness on the disease is sustained. Sierra Leone has had few Covid-19 deaths, and gets only a handful of cases per week now.
Fighting this virus successfully is going to be a long quest, just like the seasonal flu and HIV-Aids that have lasted decades and kill many people every year. No nation has locked down its economy and nation because of flu and HIV-Aids because it is obvious that such measures would not stop the spread of these diseases.
Governments have instead invested in public health measures and awareness, as well as treatment and vaccination to combat such diseases, leading to declines in morbidity and mortality. The method to fight Covid-19, which will not disappear simply by effluxion of time, is this proven scientific approach of investment in public health efforts at prevention, as well as treatment and vaccination.
Tony Sisule is an adviser at the Permanent Delegation of the Commonwealth to the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. This article is his personal analysis, and not that of the organisation
