Next steps and the pandemic

It looked like an eon in the scheduling, but it is finally here. The second 14-day lockdown imposed by presidential order on Lagos and Ogun states, as well as the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) owing to the raging Covid-19 pandemic expires this Monday night. The presidential order had applied explicitly to the three jurisdictions, but some other states across the country took a cue and declared their own lockdowns. Thus, the nation is faced almost collectively with next steps. As at the time of writing this piece, those next steps had not been unveiled.

Nigeria is yet to turn the bend towards flattening the curve of the novel coronavirus infections; hence, it would be delusory to expect the lockdown restrictions would be thrown off at this time. Indeed, the Nigerian Governors Forum (NGF) only mid-last week solicited that a fresh two-week presidential lockdown be imposed – not just on the jurisdictions considered local epicentres of the pandemic but on all 36 states of the federation. Meanwhile, the experience of the presidential order thus far by residents of the affected areas has been crushing. The challenge before President Muhammadu Buhari is to strike the delicate balance between protecting Nigerians against the pandemic through lockdown restrictions on the one hand, and on the other hand getting livelihoods that have gone comatose from the lockdown hitherto revving again. It is a tightrope walk that poses a litmus test in leadership.

Even reckless optimists must perish the thought that it is time for the world to return to the old normal. It is not time. The World Health Organisation (WHO) last week warned against haste into letting down guard, saying the worst of the Covid-19 pandemic isn’t behind. “Trust us. The worst is yet ahead of us. Let’s prevent this tragedy. It’s a virus that many people still don’t understand,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus urged. With a scary record of close to 2.8million infections worldwide and more than 190,000 deaths (as at the time of writing this), Tedros likened the novel coronavirus to the 1918 Spanish flu that killed some 100million people. But he believed such horrendous outcome could be avoided. “Now we have technology, we can prevent that disaster, we can prevent that kind of crisis,” he said. Speaking on another platform, WHO regional director for Western Pacific, Dr. Takeshi Kasai, warned that countries risked a rebound of Covid-19 if they too hastily dumped lockdown. “This is not the time to be lax. Instead, we need to ready ourselves for a new way of living for the foreseeable future,” he said.

But it has been such long night of ruinous hibernation that many countries could hardly wait to outline tentative steps back towards normalcy. Let’s consider a few samples.

Here in Africa, neighbouring Ghana with a tally of about 1,200 confirmed cases of coronavirus infection has lifted the partial lockdown on some parts of the country. President Nana Akufo-Addo said the restrictions were being eased to allow businesses operate within stipulations by health authorities on social distancing and healthy work environment; but border closure would remain in force, just as the ban on social gatherings involving more than 25 persons. “Lifting these restrictions does not mean we are letting our guard down,” he warned.

Europe’s biggest economy – Germany – plans reopening of cottage businesses this week, as well as gradual and incremental reopening of schools from early May. Insisting the ban on gatherings of more than two in public and obligation to keep appreciable physical distance from others remain in effect, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said state governors and the country’s interior minister would confer with religious communities on what to do about religious gatherings. She added that the lockdown would immediately be re-imposed if infection rate resurges.

India took halting steps towards restarting its economy by easing restrictions on farm-based businesses and some industries in areas relatively spared by the pandemic. The government also allowed plumbers, electricians and carpenters, among others, to get back to business and has given the nod for port, rail and air cargo sectors to restart operations. Prime Minister Narendra Modi acknowledged that the lockdown had brought on grievous hardship, saying one of his top priorities was to lessen the burden on those who earn daily wages.

‘With no updated database to work with, government’s…social register is at best guesstimated if not willfully cronystic’

Even in the United States, now the world’s epicentre of the pandemic, some states have announced plans to ease lockdown restrictions. Governors of three southern states namely Georgia, Tennessee and South Carolina joined the rank last week. Georgia’s governor said restaurants, hair salons, gyms, bowling alleys and some cinemas would be allowed to reopen Friday; Tennessee’s said the “vast majority of businesses” could reopen by 1^st May; and South Carolina’s governor signed off on people returning to beaches while non-essential retail businesses got the nod to reopen. Other US states easing lockdown restrictions include Minnesota, Texas, Vermont, Ohio, Idaho, Florida, North Dakota, Montana, New York, Connecticut and New Jersey.

And it isn’t all to do with commerce. In the United Kingdom, Parliament opted for phased approach to reconvening after a prolonged break. Members were billed to vote on allowing their sessions, going forward, to involve only 50 people sitting at a time in the 650-member House of Commons while others participate by videoconferencing.

Circumstances are never same for different countries, and it is unwise to even faintly contemplate emulating any other nation in dealing with the peculiar Nigerian experience of Covid-19. The examples cited are merely to show diverse attempts at worming out of paralysis and balance the fight against the pandemic with the necessity of survival, which is gravely hazarded by hard lockdown. This, to my mind, is an objective that mustn’t be ignored by any country desiring not to be blindsided by the world’s outlook when this pandemic blows over.

Nigeria cannot dispense with tough restrictions on old ways in the ‘life-and-death’ battle against the novel coronavirus. But reality at the grassroots also shows the hard lockdown is neither working to design nor salutary to survival now and beyond the pandemic. To use a common terminology, it is lockdown without human face. Out of desperation for survival, not a few Nigerians burst the restrictions to ‘hustle’ some bit – many under the cover of dusk when enforcers would have retired from highways. Handouts of token cash and edibles by governments being touted as palliatives have been a complete sham, because they aren’t getting to the most distressed segment of the populace. Reports to the contrary are false, winged by staged-managed presentations; truth is, the most distressed Nigerians are not getting succour.

Also, with no updated database to work with, government’s touted criteria for identifying beneficiaries – the so-called social register – is at best guesstimated if not willfully cronystic. Such roll essentially must be fluid: some who previously qualified to be on it might have entered into better fortunes, while throngs who did not merit being on the register are now better qualified by reason of deprivations brought on by the Covid-19 lockdown. Daily wage earners in the informal sector now restricted from their legitimate businesses have often been highlighted. And there is another category: monthly salary earners, but whose employers depend on daily revenue to raise their pay – like hotels and restaurants. Without lodgers or people eating out under the lockdown, promoters of such businesses aren’t likely to use personal funds for paying staff salary. And without salaries, who is better qualified to be on the social register?

The incertitude of criteria for palliatives is the reason why they aren’t a good enough basis for sustaining hard lockdown. Government would need devise means of gradually getting livelihoods back on stream while shielding the citizenry from the pandemic. That is the tough call it faces.