All Aboard: Steering Nigeria’s COVID-19 action train

The first case of COVID-19 was confirmed in Nigeria on the 27th of February 2020. Just a little over two months ago, yet, it feels like a lifetime has elapsed.  The world we lived in then, is so much different from the one we are about to be released into, as the lockdown restrictions are […]

The first case of COVID-19 was confirmed in Nigeria on the 27th of February 2020. Just a little over two months ago, yet, it feels like a lifetime has elapsed.  The world we lived in then, is so much different from the one we are about to be released into, as the lockdown restrictions are lifted. When the lockdown was announced by President Muhammadu Buhari on the 27th of March, there were 65 confirmed cases in the country and the President’s Chief of Staff had just tested positive for the virus.  Today, we have confirmed over 2000 cases, and many of our beloved fellow citizens (more than 60) are no longer with us, having fallen in the wake of this novel coronavirus.  May the souls of the departed rest in peace, and to those of us who remain on the journey of life, may God grant us wisdom.  We need it, desperately, at this time to navigate the complexities ahead.

When we began this journey in March, we had barely any infrastructure in place for the containment of this virus. But, somehow, with the borders closed and the elite locked in, nobody needed to tell Nigeria’s affluent that the country’s first line of defense rested with them.  The private sector – corporations, foundations, and individuals – took the lead. Within a few weeks, isolation centers, ICUs and treatment centres had sprung up in different parts of the country – particularly in Lagos. Over 30 Billion Naira was donated, and additional in-kind contributions of food and healthcare products were and continue to be made. These donations made it possible for government, at the national and subnational levels, to make available cash stipends and “survival packs” to the more vulnerable populations in locked-down states. Everyday citizens, also, extended themselves to feed the disadvantaged in their neighborhoods, and displayed basic human charity. Setting aside some of the controversy around the quantum and efficiency of palliative relief and the self-protection inherent in some of the charitable giving, it is impossible to deny that Nigerians stepped up. Even those with a penchant for looking gift horses in the mouth, must stop to at least acknowledge that this one time, with the fates of the rich and the poor “locked in,” Nigerians, particularly the elite, demonstrated a capacity to think beyond themselves that must – even for the most cynical of us –  offer hope,  at a time of such global devastation, that when push comes to shove, we will do for ourselves and one another. That maybe, just maybe, our self-loathing is not so entire as to obscure our collective desire to triumph over disease and death. That maybe, just maybe, the candle of enlightened self interest may have embered, and maybe, just maybe, it can be fanned into a flame that will light our path out of the valley of the shadow of COVID-19. Perhaps…

Our hospitals are not yet overburdened, our emergency COVID-19 centres are not at full capacity, our morgues are not spilling over, we are not modifying refrigerated containers to hold the dead, and we are not constrained to dig mass graves. The imagery is stark, and I apologise to those whose sensibilities may still be penetrable, despite these past few weeks of CNN onslaught. This is the unfortunate reality of many of the countries of the West, who, before this pandemic, would have had their healthcare systems described as robust.  Our very fortunate position is not the triumph of preparedness on our part for COVID-19, and it is important that we do not deceive ourselves. It is the absence of an onslaught.  Those who choose to hide their affliction, as if an airborne disease should be a source of shame, by checking into uncertified private hospitals, can still do so because the hospitals are not overwhelmed; and those who scowl at the rich for carrying on like spoiled brats and choosing self-care over dedicated public health infrastructure do so because the IDH still has beds that we would like to see the rich occupy. We do not have pandemic-level infection rates in Nigeria. If we did, we would curse the rich for daring to monopolise the few beds that would offer ordinary people a chance at survival. Our infection rates are not high; not yet.

Let us not sell our public health officials short. Lagos State has, since mid March, focused on expanding the testing dragnet to include contact tracing, and randomised sample testing in the various local governments. The same is true in Edo, Ogun, FCT and Kaduna. The results from these efforts will give us some sense, if we extrapolate, of the likely transmission and infection rates of the virus. Will it ever be enough to develop accurate projections? No, it will not.

We do not have a pandemic, yet.

I emphatically use the word “yet” to qualify our COVID-19 situation, and have probably done so enough times in the course of this write-up to beg the question: “This man, are you praying for corona to come?” It cannot, after all, be a coincidence that this lockdown occurred at the cusp of the Christian Lenten period, and the Holy Month of Ramadan. Yes. As a praying person myself, I need no convincing of the power and mercy of God in the affairs of men. I am, however, unconvinced that we are the only ones who pray, or that in this one thing, God is partial to Nigeria and Nigerians because the committed Christians and faithful Muslims in the rest of the world are somehow less worthy than we are. If God shows us mercy, and we never experience a full COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria, let it be because when the window to act was given to us – which others may not have had, mainly because of the virus’s migration pattern – we chose to act wisely, and use the information we have today that others did not at this stage in their own journey to alter the course of its trajectory in our nation.

We are, to be clear, easing the lockdown while still on the ascending end of the curve, much earlier in the course of the disease’s trajectory than the countries of the West. We can take this calculated risk because our numbers are low relative to population size, and frankly because we must strike that delicate balance between lives and livelihoods. We cannot afford to stay closed longer, so we have taken the upfront pain of a month-long clamp down, in the hope that this initial containment will improve our chances of long-term management. That is the strategy. We have not peaked, we have not plateaued. Our numbers remain on the rise. The first wave is still on course but our numbers are sufficiently low to enable a cautious restarting of our economy to ensure survival. Already, we are dealing with a collapse in oil prices. Most of our people inhabit a daily economy. Continued closure may not be an option.

As we prepare to continue our COVID-19 action train journey, we must consider what we know about this virus, and the possible alternatives ahead of us. It is possible that the infection rate in Nigeria will remain manageably low; because our tropical climate may be a deterrent, or/and because those of us in the developing world have more active immune systems and are less likely to develop severe disease, or/and because we are successful in adapting to a “new normal”.  It is  also possible that we will experience an aggressive steepening of the curve, because we are not special, or/and because that is the likely outcome if we fail to adapt to an enemy that is already within, or/and  because this virus has a continental sweep pattern, will travel when we eventually open up our borders, and be carried along or arrested  by whatever behaviors we begin to implement now.  Even with heat, and without migration, this virus has shown that it will spread here. So, we must continue on this journey knowing that this relatively “managed” situation of ours can, spiral out of control very quickly, given our lean resources, if we do not make significant changes as we ease the lockdown. We have been able to slow the spread thus far, but as we begin to move around again, those who have been exposed to the new cases we are recording today, will also start to move about and shed the virus in their droplets – as they speak, cough, sneeze and touch surfaces and currency notes everywhere they go. This is not a prediction of doom; it is an acknowledgement of science, and the realities of how this virus has behaved even on our own shores. Are we prepared to play the game of odds with nearly 200 million lives at close quarters?

Another thing to bear in mind, is that in the absence of a treatment or vaccine, COVID-19 will remain with us across the globe for the foreseeable future. Even the best-case-scenarios for vaccines and treatments put us at least a year to 18 months away. Having a formulation that works is one thing. As we have seen with testing, making enough of it to cover the world is another. We are probably some 2 to 5 years away from being able to treat this virus universally. This is a best-case scenario. This virus is not going away any time soon. It may travel in waves, peak and trough, but in the absence of a vaccine, the outbreaks are here to stay. Quite possibly, by the time a vaccine reaches us, herd immunity will likely have set in.  After all, we know that about 60 %to 70% of people who become infected will have mild or no symptoms. That even of those who develop moderate to severe disease, 65% to 75% will live. COVID-19 is not a death sentence, but it spreads easily and rapidly, and disease progression in the vulnerable, moves with a speed that makes the simultaneous treatment of many patients, literally a losing race against time.

I had written early last year about the 12 Giant Evils that plague our country. In COVID-19, a powerful cocktail of those – disease, squalor, want and ignorance – is what we are up against. It will likely proliferate the already-present evil of idleness, and spill over into every aspect of our lives, if those who are, by fortune, not already Nigeria’s victims, do not act now to bridge the gap. Just as the private sector and private individuals acted swiftly to ensure that emergency facilities were put up, we must continue to act jointly and decisively – hand in hand with government (ahead of government, even) and with one another – to steer our COVID-19 action train to a desirable destination.

And because, in the new “balaclava nation” that we will occupy when we all “mask up,” faces will be obscured and only eyes – desperate eyes – will be last thing we see before the curtains fall.  God forbid we let it come to that.

Fola Adeola, OFR; mni., Chairman, FATE Foundation and Coordinator, FATE Philanthropy Coalition for COVID-19.