Coronavirus: An Open Letter To Nigerians (Part 2)
This is Part 2 of a two-part series. To read Part 1, click here.
Since I wrote Part 1, a lot has happened in Nigeria. The number of cases stands at 36, including one death. The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control has a website with updates here (the site takes a while to load, be patient). Things are getting scary. Atiku’s son has been confirmed infected.
This virus is clearly not a respecter of wealth, of position or of religion, so people taking sole refuge in any or all of those factors should take heed.
I have previously spoken about the COVID-19, how it spreads, how individuals can stay safe and the need for the Nigerian community to implement social distancing to protect ourselves from a disastrous situation. Before I begin the next part, I will answer a question raised by Part 1, which is how long you should self-isolate for after exposure.
First of all, note that the virus can be transmitted before symptoms begin to show. UK guidelines suggest that you should stay at home for 7 days if you have symptoms. If you come in contact with someone who has symptoms, you should stay at home for 14 days from that point. In both cases you should self-isolate and avoid contact with those who are vulnerable (people above 60, people with pre-existing medical conditions, people with weakened immune systems and pregnant women).
Myths About Coronavirus, Busted
This whole thing is a myth!
It is not a myth. Full stop.
The sun will kill it/It does not affect black people/It is not an African disease.
The sun will not kill coronavirus. Guidance from the WHO states clearly that the virus can be transmitted in hot and humid climates and the recent upsurge of cases in Nigeria proves this.
Taking regular sips of water/rinsing the nose with saline/drinking vinegar will prevent infection.
This myth has been spread a lot on WhatsApp in some form of other, usually attributed to a university or lab or professor in China. This is completely untrue; there is no evidence to support this claim. While viruses can be inactivated by acids, the acids need to be strong and left on for a period of time. Doing so in your throat is likely to harm you. Drinking water is generally good for you, but will not prevent coronavirus infection.
Test if you have the virus by holding your breath for 10 seconds.
People get ill from COVID-19 to various degrees and it is completely possible to have it and be breathing healthily. The most common symptoms are a fever, a continuous cough and tiredness. The only way to know reliably if you have it is to get tested.
I won’t get it if I mingle with people as long as I avoid shaking their hands/if I wear a mask.
In South Korea, the explosion in cases was linked to a single patient who went to a hospital and two churches before her symptoms got very bad. This led to the infection of thousands more people, which made it more difficult to contain. Many of the commercially available masks do not give a secure fit that guarantees protection. The truth is, with frequent exposure to large groups of people there simply is no way to definitively guard against infection without proper protective gear.
This is the end of days, as predicted in the Bible.
Honestly, it well may be. Who knows? However, there have been many past incidences of people declaring a certain event to be the end of days, and the world did not then end. It won’t hurt to stay safe, just in case this is not the end of days. For the most accurate prediction of this event I’ve seen, check out this TED talk by Bill Gates in 2015. If you’re really interested you can read his accompanying paper here and an online Q&A he did a few days ago.
I’m currently abroad. Should I go home?
The Nigerian government has ordered the closure of Lagos and Abuja International airports as per a statement released by the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority. This is in addition to the closure of Enugu, Kano and Port Harcourt airports, and will last from Monday 23rd March to 23rd April. However, domestic flights continue to operate and ‘emergency and essential flights are exempted from this restriction.’ At the time of writing it is too late to persuade Nigerians not to flock home en masse, but I urge all returning Nigerians to self-isolate for 14 days upon return. This includes anyone living with these returnees. Write to your place of work informing them that you have come in contact with a potential case and you are isolating yourself to avoid infecting other people. I also urge people to refrain from domestic travel at this time. You should not even be travelling to the office, talk less of visiting your sister in Jos.
My contripipo, this is not a joke at all.
I mentioned the need for social isolation in Part 1 and I will explain a bit more why Nigeria needs lock down measures more than the Asian and Western nations whose reports we are relying on to predict the course of this virus.
Let’s plot the number of cases in Nigeria so far.
This chart clearly shows that not only is the number of cases increasing, so is the rate at which cases increase. And these are just the confirmed cases. If you pause to think about unreported cases, either due to individuals not showing symptoms, or refusing to declare their symptoms, or due to the NCDC unable to locate infected people, the numbers become even scarier. If you extend the chart at a rate of 8 new cases a day for a week (a conservative prediction, since we know that the rate of infection increases each day), we get this:
This would bring us to over 100 cases in a week’s time.
Using a more realistic (but still conservative) rate, taking into account the historical change in rate of infection and gradually increasing the rate of infection each day, we get this:
This brings us to about 200 cases in a week’s time.
Why does this matter?
Nigeria lacks the equipment being used in other countries to fight this crisis, other countries that are still drowning in the number of cases. This means that the outcomes we are seeing in Italy and the UK will pale in comparison to the outcomes we will have in Nigeria. It also means that access to the foreign aid we have historically relied on to weather health crises will be compromised by the fact that the source countries are also struggling with a lack of resources. There is therefore less spare capacity for them to send us relief.
I have spoken to several friends and family in Nigeria who are asking me to stay safe in London while going to work today. This is absolutely crazy to me. The way this virus is transmitted, infection and spread begin before symptoms start to show. Once the numbers begin to race upwards (and they have), lockdown measures will be too late. It will then be a simple matter of waiting it out and hoping for the best. The best will not be pretty. Western countries are recruiting retired medical professionals and even senior medical students to help to combat the huge surge of patients.
I bought some Chloroquine and Azithromycin, I’ll be fine.
I won’t begrudge anyone purchasing these drugs ‘just in case.’ The clinical evidence for the efficacy is still sparse, and the main paper that caused a stir was a trial done on a very small number of people. I would advise you to tread with caution because chloroquine can be quite a nasty drug (as many of you will remember from childhood) and in fact some people have been admitted to hospital for chloroquine toxicity in Lagos. Besides, there is evidence that people can be reinfected after recovering, so even if use your chloroquine, and you recover, but the whole city/country is still fighting the virus, what do you do then?
I hope this helps you gain some more perspective on this issue. While regular hand hygiene is very important, do not neglect the even more important precaution of limiting your contact with other human beings as much as possible. Think of the chaos if this spreads through markets, through crowded accommodation, through bus parks, through hotels, and many more. Please, save yourselves. I feel like a crazy doomsday prophet sounding an alarm. I hope I am wrong, but what if I am right? Think of how children with chickenpox are treated, by isolating them quicker. Why are Nigerians not taking this more seriously?!
On a less scary note, I believe that this pandemic will change the way we think of the global community. Patterns of remote access to jobs and education will change. Countries will have to rethink their emergency responses and supply chains. I hope that Nigeria can avert a disaster, and I hope even more that this forces us to address our priorities as a nation and work to restructure the country in a way that truly serves the people.
Thank you for reading. I hope this has been useful.
