TO EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED AND BE PREPARED FOR IT

https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2020/05/23/to-expect-the-unexpected-and-be-prepared-for-it/

How unexpected is life that within a few months the world …the entire world is taken over and the life of all its people changed… perhaps forever… by a miniscule ‘thing’ whose very existence as a ‘living’ organism is debated. That tiny organism, about 10,000 times smaller than a single grain of salt, has managed to halt traffic… aircraft, trains, massive trucks, trundling containers, everything. It has shut down businesses, some of them run by powerful magnates, ruin livelihoods and impressive economies, and kill more than 300,000 humans around the world, more than nukes managed to kill in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

In a world where humans boast about whose nuclear arsenal is larger and about being able to decimate their enemies by pressing a button, this tiny thing has ‘achieved’ much the same much more insidiously and very efficiently. Unlike clunky human bombs this organism has killed humans alone by means of a disease that has as yet no cure. Structures remain unharmed, houses, buildings and towers stand as before, and there is no damage to forests and wildlife. In fact if anything wildlife has thrived in the absence of man on the streets and with the decrease in the atmospheric pollution he caused.

Never has humanity been more united in distress, nor human beings worked more determinedly towards a common goal, a worthy goal, as they do now when they’re racing to develop a vaccine to combat covid-19, the disease. And never has what is good and what is bad in human society been more starkly differentiated for all to see. The inefficiency, the materialism, the selfishness, the opportunism displayed by a few persons in stark contrast to the selflessness and devotion of the many… doctors, nurses, medical researchers, charities and the such whom the world can never thank enough.

Never have the most crucial problems in society been more thrown into relief, like the important bits in a document being highlighted in fluorescent colours or typed in a bold font to catch the reader’s eye for maximum impact. We see starkly as never before the difference in the suffering of the rich on the one hand and the less fortunate on the other. Perhaps it was needed to put it this way because the difference was always there and was always stark but we had got used to it.

The world has become used to incorporating poverty within it as if it were some kind of necessary ingredient, like leavening in bread or water in coffee. We exist within viewing distance of poverty, we allow it to persist and grow as if nothing can be done about it. We accept without much question the differences that exist in society, in housing, education, nourishment and health care. This is not just in Third World countries, it is also in countries like the USA where homeless persons may be found living in parks in residential areas, where the difference in health care is mindboggling depending on whether you have insurance or not, or in Pakistan the difference between being able to afford a good private hospital or not.

It is inequality that is more or less inevitable, not poverty, the kind that leads to immense disadvantages… that is not necessary at all, and something can be done about it if the will exists.

Now, for the poor, the choice is very much in black and white. For the others there are options. For the poor this episode of covid-19 has been a choice between dying of the virus and dying of want. For the rest it has been an inconvenience, of having to make do without help, of having to disinfect and wash and not being able to socialize. But in the process we have seen the interdependence of one upon the other, how much we need various trades– the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker, and how much they need our custom. It comes home to us that everyone does not have a bank account much less access to online banking, so people don’t get paid while there is a lockdown, or they are not paid because they do not earn. So there is an increase in violence, what a surprise.

Can something be done so that even if there must be a lockdown… and the need will definitely arise again… we can survive it?

If even after this, these issues are not tackled, then the next disaster might come that much closer to annihilating us all. And there will be nobody to blame but ourselves. If we are still alive.

LAST MINUTE PANIC

https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2020/05/10/last-minute-panic/

This episode of covid-19 has yet again highlighted one thing above all others throughout the world, and certainly in Pakistan. It has shown that the poor are the least equipped to enter quarantine, or to deal with a pandemic. They have tiny homes (if they have homes) ill-suited to staying indoors long-term. And they have almost no resources to withstand a break in their ability to earn.

There are some things that can be done to enable the disadvantaged to handle such events a little better.

An issue that has been highlighted is that, as a result of the pandemic, children are even more likely to miss out on their immunization vaccines, something that was already happening as a result of ignorance and misinformation.

Around a third of the children born every year in Pakistan have not had crucial childhood vaccinations by the time they are a year old, even though the initial stage of these vaccinations ought to be completed by the age of 15 months. These vaccines prevent tuberculosis, polio, diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus, haemophilia, influenza type B, hepatitis B, diarrhoea, pneumonia, and measles. A national daily has quoted Dr D. S. Akram. a pediatrician working with an NGO dealing with immunization and child health, as saying that the largest city Karachi is “seeing a mini epidemic of measles, polio cases are on the rise, and TB is killing more people than Covid-19. All these infections are preventable, and we have vaccines available in Pakistan to combat them,” said Dr Akram.

It is a question of combating the ignorance that leads to this neglect. The government provides these shots free of charge. Yet around 500,000 persons are diagnosed with TB in Pakistan every year. Personnel administering polio drops are assaulted on a regular basis because local wisdom says they are in some way doling out disease rather than preventing it.

When there is a situation such as the current lockdown, even those who wish to get their children vaccinated may be unable to do so. Vaccines are unavailable and it is not easy to access the points where they are administered. Immunisation must be facilitated otherwise while a cure for covid-19 may be found, the world will be inhabited by even more patients of preventable diseases.

Now with people in quarantine, they are under great stress both financial and emotional. This has led to a great increase in domestic violence, but that is not all. Being cooped up together in small homes and being unable to go out into the open is likely to cause an increase in TB which will also increase when people are unable to visit clinics for treatment.

There is also likely to be an increase in the birth rate at this time. More than seven million children are born in Pakistan every year into a population that is already much greater than the country’s resources. In all times, but particularly now, there is an urgent need for better awareness regarding birth control, access to which must be facilitated when people are less able to make it to sale points and clinics, and much less able to afford it.

It is fine to say we need to maintain social distancing, but guidelines for home isolation for example have only just been finalized in the Punjab and presented to the Chief Minister for approval. These guidelines advise that PCR-positive patients and those with mild or no symptoms should be isolated at home rather than in hospitals which are overstretched, and it is advises on the care for such persons.

Aren’t these guidelines a bit overdue? You would think that once the pandemic hit, the first thing that would be done would be to set up a committee that would (aside from drawing a salary) come up with such guidelines. Coordination, organisation and honesty do not seem to be strong points in this country, although there is no reason except for a lack of commitment for this to be the case.

Educational institutions have been shut down to maintain this distancing all over the country. Students enrolled in private schools and colleges are able to attend tutorials online while this is the case. But the great majority of the young people of Pakistan have no access to water and soap, much less computers and Internet facilities. With the chasm between government and private institutions already almost unbridgeable, this hiatus in education has deepened that chasm to formidable depths.

Computers and online facilities are no longer a luxury these days, they are a necessity. If a home does not possess online facilities, and most homes do not, there should be another way for its members, particularly students, to access computers. At times like these when schools are shut down, poor students should not be left behind their more affluent contemporaries.

Lack of education, and the pervasiveness of ignorance, makes everything much worse than it would otherwise be. Most of the people in Pakistan are uneducated. They cannot be blamed if at this time they resort to strange remedies and ignorant methods to combat illness, such as injecting themselves with disinfectant or resorting to chants and other things to drive away the troubles besetting them.

It is time the federal and provincial governments identified these problems and took measures to deal with them rather than quarreling among themselves and being on the backfoot when the need arises.

Pandemics and quarantines have happened before and will happen again. Unless we are committed to the cause we are likely to be caught unprepared every single time.

THE MESSAGE

https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2020/05/02/the-message-2/

Maulana Tariq Jamil’s reading of the message behind covid-19 in which he blamed ‘shameless’ women and as a result of that God’s wrath for covid-19, is sheer nonsense, but that a message has been exposed as a result of this viral episode is unmistakable. That message is that humankind has made a hash of the earth’s environment. Now that covid-19 has taken centre stage, the most positive thing that has occurred is that the earth is getting a chance to recover from the damage caused to it to by us, at least until we humans come out of our homes again, return to our businesses, and go back to causing destruction. Until that happens the skies have cleared, and distant mountains that were cloaked as a result of pollution have become visible again. Best of all, animals that had taken cover from man’s rampant domination of the earth have come out of hiding. In Pakistan mountain lions have been seen. In other countries bears, deer, kangaroos, birds and other wildlife have all come into the open. It should cause us, if it has not already, to hang our heads in shame. So where did we go wrong?

One of the effects of mankind’s unrestrained careless activities on earth has been the production of dangerous levels of greenhouse gases.

Greenhouse gases (water vapour, carbon dioxide CO2, methane CH4, nitrogen oxide NO2 and Ozone 03) are a normal result of decomposition, agriculture etc. But they can reach dangerous proportions if these activity go unchecked by laws and regulations. These gases are produced because of over-industrialistaion, overuse of chemical pesticides, and so on. The gases then produced have harmful effects on the environment, including unbalanced levels of radiation. Just one result of this has been the appearance of ozone holes over the Arctic and the Antarctic. In fact a new ozone hole, the largest ever, opened up very recently over the Arctic.

The ozone holes reached alarming proportion, as did the harmful greenhouse gasses, and these have contributed to higher temperatures and melting glaciers, and higher sea levels. A decade ago the Secretary General of the UN actually warned that the world was “heading towards an abyss,” saying that the higher sea levels would flood cities. He specifically mentioned Pakistan and Karachi, and some other countries, as being at very high risk of flooding, famine, wars and death.

But things have changed, at least temporarily ever since covid-19 took centre stage. Factories have either shut down or brought down their production all over the world. Air travel has almost ceased. There are substantially fewer cars on the roads. And what do you know, the largest ever ozone hole that opened up so recently, has suddenly closed.

According to Dahiya and Butt in the CREA journal, comparing data from before to after lockdown, NO2 pollution in Pakistan has dropped 35 percent in Karachi, 56 percent in the twin cities, 49 percent in Lahore, 20 percent in Multan and 45 percent in Peshawar.

NO2 is responsible for thousands of cases of asthma which would not otherwise exist and is the main factor behind the production of PM2.5, which stands for particulate matter. The greater the particulate matter in the air, the higher the atmospheric pollution. This impacts on lung and heart health and significantly decreases mortality.

Deaths from covid-19 in Pakistan are officially at 417 on Saturday morning. If you believe official figures regarding covid-19 deaths (although they’re almost certainly much more than that) it means that environmental pollution kills many, very many more people in this country than covid does, as it does around the world. So pollution across the world must be controlled once things are back to normal.

China may be the largest industrial nation in the world, but the USA is right behind it at number two.

The election of Donald Trump as leader of the second most industrialised nation has been a huge disaster for many reasons, most certainly for the environment.

The following data has been taken from the National Geographic, from a list of the impact the POTUS has had on the environment.

President Obama had placed restrictions on the dumping of mining waste into waterways. Mr. Trump revoked those restrictions. His fellow Republicans called the restrictions ‘redundant and onerous.’

The Keystone XL pipeline has been approved by the Trump Administration. The previous government had rejected the pipeline amid fears that it would produce much greater carbon emissions.

The Trump Administration has made massive cuts in scientific research and environmental programmes designed to protect air and water.

In 2017 the Trump Administration cancelled laws to prevent endangered whales and turtles from getting snagged in nets on the US West Coast.

The same year the USA pulled out of the crucial Paris Climate Agreement which brings together a group of 194 countries that have agreed to work towards curbing greenhouse gas emissions that lead to global warming.

The US presidential election is a matter concerning the American people, but its impact is felt around the world. If the administration of the second largest industrial nation has no understanding of environmental issues, then it does not bode well for the rest of us. Just as much as if our own government were to fail in that respect, which it too has.

A lot has been written about the subject, but it is astounding how it took a microscopic organism to bring the matter into sharp focus.