In the first stanza of his classic song, Trapped, Bruce Springsteen sang, “Seems like I’m caught up in your trap again; seems like I’ll be wearing same old chains; good will conquer evil and truth will set me free”. 

But this is not about Mr. Springsteen and whoever he had in mind while singing those lines. It is about the fact that humanity is trapped in a storm of fear occasioned by the global fixation on the fatalities of COVID-19 and not on the recoveries. Let me point out my meaning.

If you look at the global statistics on COVID-19 as they affect infections, recoveries and death, you will wonder if there is anything special driving the focus of reports on deaths alone. Take a look: as at 6am on Wednesday, May 13, the global count of infections was 4,342,780 of which 2,447,294 are active. Of this number too, there have been 1,602,592 recoveries and 292,894 deaths. In the worst hit countries, like the United States of America, there have been 1,385,850 total infections, of which 1,041,830 are active, with 81,795 deaths. But there have been 262,225 recoveries in the USA. Canada has an infection total of 69,981 with 31,994 active cases and 32,994 recoveries and 4,993 deaths. Russia has a total of 232,243 cases, of which 186,615 are active and 43,512 recoveries and 2,116 deaths. China, from where the virus originated, has a total infection figure of 82,926 with only 104 still active and 78,189 recoveries against 4,633 deaths. France has a total of 117,423 cases, with 94,056 still active and 56,724 recoveries and 26,643 deaths.

Poland has 16,561 cases, with 6,131 recoveries, 827 deaths and 9,603 still active. In the United Kingdom, the count is 223,060 cases, with 32,065 deaths and 780 recoveries plus 190,651 still active. That is probably one exception where deaths outweigh recoveries. However, Greenland recorded a total of 11 cases. All are listed as recovered. No fatalities. In Brazil, it is 169,594 cases with 67,384 recoveries and 11,653 fatalities. Some 90,557 cases are still active. The figures from Argentina follows the same trend, with 6,278 cases and 1,837 recoveries and 314 deaths; 4,127 cases are still active. In Australia, there are 6,980 cases recorded thus far. Out of this, 6,270 recovered while 98 died and 612 are still active. New Zealand has 1,497 cases of which 1,398 recovered and 21 died; 78 cases are still active.

Papua New Guinea recorded only eight cases. All eight recovered. Malaysia has 6,742 cases with 5,223 recoveries and 109 deaths. 1,410 are still active. India has 71,339 cases of which 23,033 have recovered while 2,310 died and another 45,996 are still active. Iran has recorded 109,286 cases with 87,422 recoveries and 6,685 deaths. Another 15,179 cases are still active. Turkey has recorded 139,771 cases with 95,780 recoveries and 3,841 deaths, while Spain has a total of 268,143 cases with 26,744 deaths and 117,846 recoveries. Switzerland has 30,380 cases of which 26,800 have recovered and 1,845 died; 1,635 cases are still active. Germany has recorded 172,576 cases thus far with 147,200 recoveries and 7,661 deaths, while 17,715 are still on the active cases list. Also, of the 219,814 cases recorded in Italy thus far, 106,587 had recovered while 30,738 died; 82, 488 cases are still active.

In Africa, South Africa has recorded 10,652 cases of which 4,357 have recovered and 206 died with another 6,089 cases still active. Algeria has 5,891 cases with 2,841 recoveries and 507 deaths. Mauritania recorded eight cases, six recovered while one died; one is still active. In Congo DR, current heartbeat of Ebola, it is 1,024 cases with 141 recoveries and 41 deaths and 842 active cases. Egypt has 9,746 cases with 2,172 recoveries and 533 deaths. Ethiopia has 261 cases with 106 recoveries and five deaths, while Madagascar recorded 186 cases with 101 recoveries and 85 still active. In Nigeria, our national records, as captured by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), indicate 4,641 cases with 902 recoveries and 150 deaths. This means that 3,589 cases are still active. With statistics of the global recovery standing at 1,602,592 recoveries against 292,894 deaths (at the time I wrote this), it is evidently clear that COVID-19 is not as fatalistic as projected. This also confirms scientific positions that COVID-19 fatality rate is about 2% compared to fatalities from its predecessors, SARS and MERS.

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So, why is the emphasis on deaths instead of recoveries? Why are we trading fear instead of hope and scaring people away from life? The situation is now such that almost every illness is suspected to be COVID-19. It may quite be a matter of time before we begin to handle car crash victims as COVID-19 cases. I believe that the constant focus on death has forced many Nigerians with symptoms to hide within family homes and manage themselves with whatever herbs they can pluck out of the bushes even when they are uncertain about the toxic impact of such herbs on the liver.

Two factors, to my mind, are responsible for this. One is the decision, by Nigeria, to domicile everything about testing and treatment in the NCDC. This decision effectively excluded all other hospitals, private and public, even when they had been managing flu-related cases in the past.  That decision also shut out experts who were trained by Nigeria to manage such infections like Ebola. The Ebola challenge put Nigeria in pole position to manage such outbreaks. Many professionals were trained and even shipped abroad to help in containing the spread in Sierra Leone and Liberia. Those experts are not involved in the management of COVID-19 even when NCDC has shown lack of capacity in terms of logistics and personnel. Why?

Secondly, NCDC has shown lack of capacity to diagnose and treat. With inadequate laboratory infrastructure for a population of over 200 million, there is no way NCDC alone would timeously test Nigerians for COVID-19 so as to enable them to return to normal life. So, fear envelopes everyone. For instance, the five states of the South-East are served by a modular laboratory in Abakaliki, Ebonyi State. It beats logic how that one laboratory will effectively serve the entire South-East with the condition of roads as they are even as NCDC is lacking in choppers to fly across for immediate attention. Similar situations exist in the North-East and North-West. This, I believe, made it possible for managers of the pandemic in Nigeria to spread fear, panic and anxiety than hope and as such got the people trapped in the belief that contact with the virus means death, even when evidence shows that COVID-19 is not as fatal as malaria. In 2018, Nigeria recorded 95,844 deaths from malaria, at an average of 263 deaths per day.

By sucking ourselves into this fear, we played into the hands of merchants who promised us a vaccine to the exclusion of remedies, which nature has blessed our country with. Many ‘experts’ from Europe and America tell us that COVID-19 will linger till a vaccine is developed. That suggests that no other remedy is acceptable to the world except those developed by vaccine merchants. That is another form of slavery, which fear has locked us in. Didn’t storyteller, James Hadley Chase, say in Want to Stay Alive that fear is the key to unlock the rich man’s wallet? They marketed fear to us and are now telling us that the only way to conquer that fear is through a vaccine, which they will also produce and sell to us.

Till that is done, the emphasis is on deaths just to make demand for their vaccine hit the rooftops whenever they decide to introduce it. So, they create the problem and also proffer the solution. In doing this, they eliminate every other possibilities. If in doubt of what this cycle means for imperialism, read John Perkins Confessions of the Economic Hit Man again.

Like President of Madagascar, Andry Rajoelina, said, if the Madagascar solution were European or American, WHO would have certified it. But it is African. Unfortunately, Africans, whose nations are blessed with herbs, are locked in expectation of a vaccine and at the same time spreading fear. One had expected that the Nigerian federation would assemble all its alternative healthcare experts with claims to herbal solutions to COVID-19 to work towards finding a solution. But this is Nigeria, where we chant ‘support local industry’ merely as integrity slogan. The COVID-19 response had been declared a war by those managing it. In a war, every option that makes victory possible is explored. But in Nigeria’s war against COVID-19, options that make victory possible are excluded and the people are trapped in expectation while living in the cage of fear.