There is no doubt the novel coronavirus is going to change our lives for many months to come. Right now every government’s mitigation effort is to either stop spread of the virus or reduce its spread until a vaccine is found. The words on the streets on prevention are; keep a social distance, frequently wash your hands, sneeze using a disposable tissue or handkerchief then immediately discard or use your elbow.
It’s a difficult time for everyone, just yesterday Mombasa Governor, Ali Hassan Joho called for a complete shut down to completely reduce spread of the virus. His thoughts are borrowed from China’s best practice in reducing spread of the virus, for the last few days Hubei Province has reported no new infections, and those that are there are imported cases.
For our country, we are working on preventing the infections from reaching the scenario of an inverted curve or tipping levels. To inform our decision to this let me present three scenarios:
First let’s look at the movements of patient 31 in South Korea. The patient is a 61yr old woman who lived in Daegu, and occasionally made trips to Seoul which has been reporting huge numbers of people who have tested positive for the virus. When she tested positive for the virus, medics were quick to trace the people whom she has been in contact with. It baffled them to realize that patient 31 had actually attended 2 Sunday services that had a capacity of 1000 congregants each, and at some point had attended a buffet lunch before she presented herself sick in a health facility and tested positive for the virus. All these interactions were done while she was contagious but did not present any symptoms.
Within 24 hours, the nation’s number of confirmed cases started multiplying exponentially. The tally rose by 20 during that period, doubled the following day and then doubled again on the third day, according to Japan Times.
"The situation here was not really serious until mid-February. It began to get very serious starting with patient 31," said Hwang Seung-sik, a spatio-temporal epidemiologist at Seoul National University. "Before patient 31, our strategies to contain the virus were working. But after countless people were infected by patient 31, it became very difficult to control, "he added.
The second scenario takes us to Italy, the new epicenter for the virus. Currently the country has had over 6077 deaths from the COVID-19 compared to China’s 3277. This is as a result of the government taking too long in making the painful decision in enforcing a lockdown on Lombardy, the province of Bergamo, which now has the most cases of COVID-19 virus patients. It is believed the rising numbers in the south is a result of people, who were already infected but did not present any symptoms, fleeing Lombardy before the lock down and hence further infecting others whom they came in contact with. Currently the country’s health system is overwhelmed with surging deaths and new infections every day.
Scenario three is right here at home. Kilifi Deputy Governor defied orders that barred unessential travels abroad. He went head and traveled to Germany, came back and still defied orders to observe a self-quarantine period of 14days after travelling abroad. He attended a funeral, cabinet meeting before being forced into self-quarantine and testing positive for the virus.
We have not mentioned the priest from Italy who presided over a funeral in Siaya County and then later tested positive for the COVID-19.
These are cases of single super-spreader of the virus who unknowingly put many lives at risk but also infected masses with the virus with the exception of the third case.
But there is a lot to learn from these people and their countries. Firstly, they call on governments to step up their testing initiatives, because early detection can reduce spread and save lives. This means that testing should not only be made affordable but also available for every person with or without the symptoms. Governments also need to be vigilant in reducing unessential travels abroad, and those who jet into the country should monitored closely to ensure they observe the self-quarantine period and tested after the period just to be safe that they are not infected. Finally, and most important, as painful as it may seem our government will need to observe total lockdown of the nation to reduce spread.
Keep in mind, that for the novel coronavirus, 10 days can be a lifetime.
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