The purposes of this Short Thought, is the impact of CoVid19 on South Africa specifically.
But first some digressions. The Western, specifically European mind, has been conditioned by Socratic and Greek philsophy to think in either/ or patterns. You're wrong, I'm right - one see it in too many arguments. And often, the worst insult to give to a person is that he is a fence-sitter.
In contrast, and I am no expert here, the asian mind seems to be more inclusive. We all know the Yin-Yang symbol, where black and white live together in harmony.
China refers to itself as The Middle Kongdom. The Kanji for China is 中国. The first kanji, 中, is Zhōng, and like all Kanji has a multitude of meanings. As a preposition, it can be translated as in, during, among, in the process of. As adjective medium, central. As noun, middle or central. But its meaning also has a philosophical layer, Zhōngyōng, that of avoiding extremes or excesses. (
). As we are steeped in Socratic philosophy in the West, the Chinese are steeped in Zhōngyōng from our birthing days.
The second digression is to point out the human inability to handle exponential growth, and very large numbers. If you disagree with me, first Google "bezos wealth in rice", and tell me you were not surprised. If you do, you will be one in a million.
The third digression is the difference between an event driven and process driven approach. The event driven process looks at the statistics now, and sees that the deaths are low, and act accordingly. The process driven approach, builds a model to counter our inability to handle exponential growth, and plan accordingly.
The real question is "What to do to combat the SARS-CoV-2 virus that is raging around the world, and has also taken hold in South Africa, while taking into account the above two generic points, and the below specific points."
And there are several elements to consider:
The impact on the economy, the resulting impact on household incomes, the resulting impact on specifically the food supply chain.
How to get food to people that can no longer afford food.
The exponential progress of the virus, where every person on average (in first world countries!) infect more than two other people. Can you imagine how that would increase in the slums of the developing world?
The load on the medical (AND funeral) infrastructure. There have been several reports of mass graves around the world, and even overrun mortuaries in New York City and Italy. The well reported shortage of PPE, and the international hi-jackings thereof.
The demographics of the country. The split between rich and poor. The likely pathways that the virus can follow to infect. The movement of people that can transition the virus from one geographic are to another. While (maybe?) worse in South Africa, there is very little movement between rich and poor residential areas, other than through commercial and industrial areas, iow places to work, and places to shop.
The availability of reliable tests, in volume, to have enough information to manage the situation.
The availability of treatment(s) for the vaccine. There has been very good news on Remdesivir. If it reduces hospitalisation by 30%, it means the health system can handle 25% more parients. Over and above the cost saving in human trauma and financial resources.
And the holy grail, the availability of a vaccine. Once we get this, if we do, it will change the calculus on all of the above questions. But again, it will be a process. Not just the process of developing, and testing, and retesting. But also the manufacturing, which takes eggs, laid by chickens, one at a time. Millions of eggs. Millions of chickens. Transporting the chickens, their feed, the eggs, the vaccines....
Vasbyt. Humanity has survived for thousands of years, many pandemics, the atomic era and much more. - Just don't let a good crisis go to waste. #RethinkPriorities.
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