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Who’s To Blame

As outbreaks surge across Europe and the United States, WHO has for the first time since last December when the initial outbreak was reported, warned that countries are “not taking the coronavirus crisis seriously enough”.

Who’s To Blame

South Korean soldiers wearing protective gear prepare to spray disinfectant on the street to help prevent the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus, in Seoul on March 6, 2020. - South Korea's total reported infections -- the largest figure outside China, where the coronavirus first emerged -- rose to 6,284 on March 6, the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. (Photo by Jung Yeon-je / AFP)

The alarm over coronavirus across the world deepened on Friday when the World Health Organization warned that the counter-measures ought never to be mistaken as a “drill”. The fineprint of the warning would suggest that there is a degree of apathy in certain countries over the fearsome spread. As outbreaks surge across Europe and the United States, WHO has for the first time since last December when the initial outbreak was reported, warned that countries are “not taking the coronavirus crisis seriously enough”.

The conclusion is much too chilling even to imagine. With an estimated 3300 deaths till Saturday afternoon and 100,000 afflictions in 85 countries ~ not to forget the economic tumble ~ attention to public health doesn’t quite match the enormity of the tragedy. So grave a humanitarian crisis in a sphere as fundamental as health has seldom afflicted the world. And yet it strains credulity that in the reckoning of the medical fraternity, there has generally been what it calls a “disturbing lack of hospital preparedness”.

The potentially mortal affliction lends no scope for negligent nonchalance. While China and to a lesser degree Italy have been straining every nerve to contain and cure the outbreak, there has been needless semantic quibbling over whether it is a pandemic and the ramifications thereof. Any clarification of the medical vocabulary can for now be kept in abeyance. Suffice it to register that the illness is fast assuming virtually endemic proportions. Never perhaps has education been so severely hit.

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If WHO’s estimate is any indication, 300 million students have been sent home worldwide. Affected too must be religion. With Bethlehem under lockdown, Pope Francis is scheduled to alter his tour plans. As much has been indicated by the Vatican in parallel to WHO’s caveat, indeed a robust denunciation of what it calls a “drill”. Saudi Arabia is said to have “cleared” Mecca which is scheduled to be “sterilised”.

Though China still accounts for the majority of afflictions and deaths, South Korea, Iran and Italy are the most acutely affected. WHO’s warning must resonate across the echo chambers of the comity of nations. “A long list of countries are not showing the level of commitment that is needed to match the level of threat that we all face,” is the message of the UN entity’s Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. His statement that has clothed the warning ~ the most severe yet ~ is explicit on the point that “the epidemic is a threat to every country, rich and poor.”

America’s nursing union ~ markedly not the physicians’ fraternity ~ has let it be known that “our nation’s hospitals are unprepared to safely handle COVID-19”. Quite an indictment for a nation that is known for a generally efficient public policy. The world is in crisis in the manner of a degraded environment. So too must be the response.

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