There could be Blessings in Disguise with the Current Covid-19.
In my last post on this blog, I hinted that there has never been no calamity that tried to level the ground for all especially in terms of health care like the Covid-19 virus. Vulnerability wasn’t skewed in any level to the poor, nay, the poor as well as rich have all been at an equal risk.
On the other hand, the economy is slowly plummeting and it does not affect the poor only. The economy’s poor performance has more dire consequences on the rich than it does on the poor. For example, there are a number of rich people who had invested in stocks whose paper wealth has been cut to a very large extent. Billions have been lost because of this poor economy.
We could argue that there are some who would have made cash out of the pandemic. Arguably, every business thrives when the strength of the currency as well as when the purchase power is high. So even the one who continues with business feels the pinch with the low purchasing power.
To a different scale, stress levels increases with the anxieties people have contingent on the fact that none knows what happens tomorrow except for weather forecasters who anticipate how the day may look like. But with the crisis, we are in the dark not sure what the morrow brings to our tables. This has made many of us to be in a state of confusion.
On this scale, we may choose as a country to be reactionary and forget as soon as things change for the better or use this as an opportunity to prepare us for the future. One thing is very sure as the surety of our death that calamities are not going to be over any time soon or even in future.
So if we take this time as an opportunity to streamline many of our non-working systems, it will mean an insurance of our future starting with our healthcare. An example of showing that our healthcare is not okay at all is the rallying call to hire thousands of healthcare workers. Simply to mean that before this recruitment, our healthcare was in ICU and we didn’t appreciate that fact.
Beside the human capital, other resources that are in short supply are ventilators. Not just ventilators but even other drugs. The sooner we realize that this is an opportunity for us to prepare well for the future, the better for our lovely country.
I really appreciate the innovations that I have watched come from JKUAT especially with the properly working prototype of a ventilator that was launched more than a week ago. The good news was that they can be able to churn out fifty of such machines per week.
The big question comes now on why we didn’t realize that that was an opportunity we could capitalize on as a country early enough. Had the lots of money used to import ventilators used to develop our local industry of making such locally, we could be very far off by now.
India decided to innovate around their motor vehicle segment with the kind of vehicles like Mahindra. The first models weren’t that good. We somehow laughed them off but we can’t compare their modern day Mahindra and Tata model vehicles. They are very great. And what was the Secret, they held their guns and persisted besides the guts to start and believe in their own.
Another segment is of course our local manufacturing sector. If there is anything that needs to teach us a lot of things is the fact that we are not doing really well in our manufacturing sector. We import a lot and should things halt by any means, we may die to obscurity and oblivion.
Suppose every country held strongly to their drug supplies as some countries have done within this period, then some other countries will have a major blow. One of them is us. We will die simply since we didn’t empower our own sectors to be able to produce the most basic of drugs and other essential materials for that matter.
We have had to maneuver through darkness especially with things to do with safety gears. We have been importing everything from the most basic of them. You can’t imagine that we didn’t have companies producing gloves and medical masks to surmountable levels or if they existed they were never empowered by governments due to tireless promotion of foreign brands.
This is a wake up call that we need to develop our infrastructures and all round sectors of the economy to ensure that in future we can be able to have alternatives in case one sector gets grounded. An example is the tourism sector which we have relied on heavily for far too long. We need to develop alternatives such as building a strong manufacturing and agricultural sector to boost our export earnings as well.
With all these measures ironed out, we will have enough revenue and foreign exchange earnings to help us have extra money in our disposal to help us in such times as these. It should not be that any times we have these pandemics we purely rely on foreign aid and unsustainable short term plans.
Besides, we should innovate around our sectors so that in future we don’t see massive job losses when such things happen. Or else we should have alternatives to cushion us when such eventualities come our way.
Whatever route we decide to take, we will bear the ultimate responsibility be it on the short or long term in future. The choice is ours.
End.
Copyright @ 2020
Keep safe distances, wear face mask and wash your hands regularly with soap and water.Keep Safe. Stay safe.
Together let us STOP Covid-19.