A year of coronavirus – a personal view

Just over a year ago, I wrote as follows in the columns of bdnews24.com:

"A number of educated Bangladeshis have been speaking like US President Donald Trump did in March this year, i.e. the virus will miraculously vanish. Despite reports to the contrary, some people are convinced that COVID19 is not fatal. Also, when I pointed out that some Middle-East Muslim countries have closed mosques nobody could tell me why the government has not ordered mosques to be completely closed in Bangladesh. I have, after all, been told that Muhammad (PBUH) in one of the Hadiths has said there are certain occasions when prayers can be offered at home and in another Hadith he said that during a plague epidemic you should stay at home. The Islamic Foundation and the Imams should make this very clear before the weekly Friday Jumma prayers. At a mosque in Kuwait from the middle of March, a muezzin instead of calling "hayya alas-salah" (come to prayer), he tells the faithful "as-salatu fi buyutikum" (pray in your homes). The Islamic Foundation will also need to give some guidance regarding religious activities at the time of Ramadan which begins, I believe, on April 23"

A year ago grocery and medicine shopkeepers were trying as far as possible to make people keep their distance and wear masks. This year nobody seems to care.

Despite being very careful and following all the advice, three weeks ago I fell sick and tested positive. In my case the infection was less severe because I had taken the AstraZeneca vaccine in February but for some days I was very sick and my recovery is slow with a number of side effects.

It appears that the health authorities, especially in Dhaka, were not ready for an increase in infections in March this year. What have the authorities been doing for the last one year? Very little it appears. A year ago there was a shortage of beds for COVID-19 patients, a shortage of ICU beds and a shortage of oxygen. The situation now, a year later, is exactly the same, and so it appears that a lot of people in positions of responsibility have been sleeping. Not only that, but control of corruption and of prices is completely absent. At a reputed hospital I was asked to get a CT scan of my lungs. At the time I did not have Tk 14,500 with me to pay for that. I was surprised when the doctor told me that nearby there are two other hospitals that do the same test for Tk 4,500 at one and Tk 8,000 at the other. In the media, there is information that a Facebook company in Dhaka, within 7 days, raised the price of an oxygen cylinder from Tk 14,500 to Tk 18,000 whereas the price of an oxygen cylinder in Narayanganj was reported to be only Tk 5,000. Often, we learn, that nobody gets into trouble because adequate bribes are handed out.

To change the attitude of people so that they take the pandemic seriously, I believe that religious leaders of all faiths need to be more vocal. They have a lot of work to do to change the attitude of even the most highly educated. For instance, an acquaintance of mine, who has higher educational qualifications than me, phoned me a few days ago to enquire about my health and told me that I had only myself to blame. He told me, "After you were granted Bangladesh citizenship in 2018, you should have embraced Islam. If you had and you had been praying five times a day you would not have caught the virus and you would not need to wear a mask." "Believers do not need to wear masks", he added. Clearly, if this is the belief of some, the religious leaders have a lot of work to do!

In addition, I saw a recent report that the Minister of Health has blamed the 'complacency' and lack of action of the people. I beg to differ most strongly. The lack of action has been with the government authorities right across the board, across all ministries and across all divisions and districts. For the last one year, it appears that they have been sitting on their hands, hoping, like former President Trump, that the virus will miraculously go away. Not lack of cooperation, it has been a total absence of cooperation.

In addition, the situation with the continuous closure of educational institutions is, in my opinion and that of many others, both scandalous and criminal. What have the educational authorities been doing up and down the country for the last one year? Have they made sure that that the correct number of toilets, water supplies and washbasins have been installed in all educational establishments? Thousands of schools, particularly in rural areas, could have been running safely in the open air, under trees for the last 6 months. The children could have been taught about the COVID-19 virus and how to handle it and they could have become valuable child ambassadors spreading the correct messages among their families and in their communities. The Ministry of Education has been and is responsible for untold mental damage inflicted on the children and, of course, the alarming rise of child marriages. Who will hold the ministry to account?

Whenever the Ministry of Education announces a further delay for reopening schools, it ends the statement with "online education will continue". Where do the officials and ministers of the Ministry of Education live? Are they in the real world? Do they have their feet on the ground? It is only the children of richer families that have enough smartphones or tabs to access online education and so this is another way to make the gap between the rich and the poor even greater than it is now, but nobody seems to care. During a very serious epidemic such as COVID19 educational institutions should always be the last institutions to close and the first to open.

I am both very frustrated, very sad and very angry. My cardiologist son, in the UK, has been on the COVID-19 front line and was infected mildly last year. He says, "Act as if you are infected and wear a mask at all times. It will prevent you from infecting others but it will also protect you." SO, PLEASE WEAR A MASK.

Bangladesh is better than this and can do better than this.