One year later and the run continues, with or with Corona

One year later and the run continues, with or with Corona

Oh, how time flies!  It was on such a date, March 11, 2020, that the world health organization (WHO) declared the corona virus a global pandemic.  The very corona virus that causes SARS-COVID-2-2019 aka COVID-19.  It did not take long before Kenya shut down most sectors of its economy, starting with a 6.00pm to 5.00am curfew, a ban on social gathering and closure of all learning institutions.  

It got worse when a week later we had a lockdown, where Nairobi and five other towns were locked down from the rest of Kenya, with entry and exit from these towns banned.  Workers were asked to work from home or mostly not at all.  It was a first time in living memory that the world was coming to an end!  It was at this same time that four new concepts were introduced into human vocabularies – social-distancing, face-masking, hand-washing and quarantining.

It was a scary time in our history.  We feared the unknown.  We feared the worst.  We were facing this new virus, causing a new disease that few understood.  We had a new disease that was deadly – a ‘sure’ death sentence if you were to get it, yet, at the same time, only few people were dying from the disease.  What was this contradictory disease?  

Some populace in the globe even started to advance conspiracy theories that this whole thing was some making of some conspiring nations to disrupt the world economy, for some ‘conspiratory’ reasons!  This would lead some people in some parts of the world to do nothing about this virus.  To them, there was no such virus.  Life continued uninterrupted in their world.  Our southern neighbours would take that ‘no corona’ route (with lots of regret one year later).

It was a scary time in our history.  We feared the unknown.  We hid in our houses and armed ourselves with foods and drugs.  We would not go down without a fight.  We would fight the new virus until one of the parties gave up the ghost.  The virus would however win the war and the battle.  Spreading like wildfire, starting from China in December 2019, to the rest of the world.. one infection at a time.

It was a scary time in our history.  We feared the unknown.  We would however learn new lessons with time, though by that time lives had been lost, jobs had been lost and our freedoms were lost.  We were now operating on rules, fear and rumors.  Nonetheless, we were getting to understand the new virus and the new disease.  We started understanding that a good rest aka quarantine was the basic therapy for the new disease – can you imagine that?  Recovering without treatment?  That is was the new disease taught us!  

And therefore, recoveries started becoming many.  Fatalities remained few, stabilizing at a constant rate of 2% of all cases.  There was prediction that Africa would be mostly wiped out by this new disease.  We wondered why us?  Nonetheless, the Armageddon that was to hit Africa would come to pass not.  It would not take long before we had vaccines developed in record time and released for immediate use.  

Humanity was at stake and preservation of life was at the highest of priorities.  Life would just have to come back to normal.  We could not survive without our normal – old normal or new normal – but normal nonetheless.  Lockdowns would be lifted, curfew hours would be shortened, schools would reopen, work from office would resume, life would start having some semblance of normalcy, albeit with the four buzz words remaining firm on our vocabularies…. Social-distancing, face-masking, hand-washing and quarantining.

It was scary during that March 11, 2020 declaration day.  We feared for the end of the world as we know it.  On that date* we had 4,813 confirmed cases and 294 deaths on planet earth.  Mortality rate was 6%, with little or no knowledge on how to manage this new scary virus.  Kenya had zero cases.  One year later**, and the world has now suffered 118,958,711 infections and 2,637,365 deaths, though we also celebrate 94,531,192 recoveries.  This is a 2% mortality rate.  Kenyan numbers are now 111,185 infections, 1,899 deaths and 87,994 recoveries.  We still social-distance, we still face-mask, we still hand-wash and we still quarantine as necessary.  How the world has changed in just one year!

*WHO data

**worldometers data

So, as I remember that Monday run, three days ago, when I was on that Uthiru to Gitaru and back route.  On that very day when I finished the run feeling as fatigued as if I had the corona thing, my only consolation was that I had the four words in my vocabulary keeping me going… social-distancing, face-masking, hand-washing and quarantining (if came to that).  Luckily, it was just a marathoner’s fatigue, since I was back to normalcy hardly one-hour after than 2.19.14 run.  

And anyways, there is no shame in contracting the corona virus.  It can happen.  It does happen.  Even if it does, it comes and goes without much ado in a majority of cases.  Just a forced rest for a period of about two weeks aka quarantine, and then you are good to go.  Therefore, let us celebrate the one-year of scary moments with the comfort that humanity shall always find a way to prevail… however bad things may seem.

WWB, the coach, Nairobi, Kenya, March 11, 2021