"Let us set aside all skepticism."
"Let us set aside all skepticism."
Without making light of the wildly spreading nCoV (Novel Coronavirus) let me say I think it best that we, specially government officials and so-called experts, should all step back from the press conferences and hyped, highly intrusive hospital visits complete with masks and all. This simply is not the time for show boating with all kinds of theorizing, investigations and expert interviews.
The past week or so has been filled with news, graphic presentations and features about this newly discovered virus that another round may no longer be helpful. In fact, the opposite may turn out to be true as all kinds of news and expert opinions flooding the airwaves and social media, we may be engendering fear and undue consternation.
Of course, there is nothing wrong with reminding people once in a while about the dangers which may be lurking around. But there is nothing like educating and informing them in a more organized way rather than issuing these out in a disjunctive, intermittent way to get the message across. While we do our utmost to prepare for any eventuality, for example, the public should be told that based on the most recent data so far this nCoV has not been as deadly as the most recent epidemics like MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome) or SARS or even the swine flu (HINI). Recorded HINI infections totaled 30,000 cases of which 12,200 died. SARS infected 8,000 people killing 774 (one out of 10) and MERS had 1,200 cases causing 444 deaths. So far, the tracking for nCoV is 3 percent—worrisome but not as sizable as the current news cycle with government’s active participation would like people to believe. But then again, all this is engendering undue fear and apprehension as there seems to be no organized effort to get things put in perspective and people mobilized to get things to calm down.
How we miss the methods and measures of the late Senator and Health Secretary Juan Flavier whose homely video ads and advisories were simply instructive and delightful that entire communities, nay, the whole nation took these to heart and came around together devising their respective responses, mainly preventive, to counter any possible outbreaks. Or, prevent one from happening. Up to now, Yosi Kadiri and similar “Flavieritos,” as some have come to call these, remain embedded and repeated in all corners of the country. In tandem with these popular mobilizing efforts was the quiet mobilization done within the health services community starting with preparations at every organized level through barangay health workers and rural health units to municipal health centers and at the regional and central DOH offices.
I have reason to hope that given our experience with Dengvaxia, typhoid and other such health issues these past two years, Health Secretary Duque and his crew have come out with the needed protocols to get us on top of this nCoV scare. I hope the needed education and information materials about nCoV have been properly disseminated down to the farthest barangays, that the DOH health delivery system is primed and that private health services sector is apprised of what is being done and what we expect from it at any given time.,
On the part of those who have been scarred by the manner by which Duque and his ilk have conducted and continue to be conducting themselves as far as the Dengvaxia fiasco and all other DOH issues (fund under utilization, slow if not misdirected and undistributed medical supplies, etc. etc.) are concerned, I have just one request: this time around, let us set aside all skepticism, believe Duque, and throw our support to the efforts of the DOH and the medical community to get this scare lowered to the least possible level. We do not need to further fuel the fears and apprehensions of a public which has been scared no end with all the news swirling around thus far.
In the immortal words of the then President Franklin Delano Roosevelt as he rallied the American people to buckle down to work, hold on together and rise up to overcome the gloom wrought by the Great Depression: “There is Nothing to Fear but Fear Itself.” It was that call to arms, albeit embedded in a grand development plan which re-energized a dejected nation, let the nation’s farms bloom and the factories humming as communities across the land moved on past the burdens brought about by a confluence of events, that got the United States down to its knees and with their united efforts catapulted America to its status as a super power.
Sana na nga.