Coronavirus and us

Ours is an expressive culture; thus, we even spit and make patterns with the sputum on the ground and floors.

Men freely urinate at the slightest coaxing by nature, spluttering urine indiscriminately.

Women, by their anatomy, are not so expressive in attending to that call, preferring rather to squat discretely behind bushes, walls and trees in attending to the need when there are no facilities.

I remember a long-distance bus journey within the country some years back and feeling the urge to urinate.

Reaching that middle of nowhere, I believe other passengers were also thus compelled and signalled to the driver to stop.

I felt uncomfortable going into the bushes to relieve myself, with the elderly women on the bus urging me not to worry as that was a normal thing to do.

Still uncomfortable, one elderly woman removed her cover cloth and gave it to me to cover myself, while squatting.

I still had to refuse the offer, roping in my urge until a rest stop.

We litter indiscriminately, to the point that now most green spaces in the city are sparsely green, with litter distorting the face of our environment.

Is it in our DNA to be so expressive with filth, putting it anywhere, everywhere and anyhow?

I think not, because our parents have told us stories of sanitation officers summoning our grandmothers and fathers to face local councils if they inspected water pots and found the slightest bit of discolouration within.

Since December, the whole world has been observing the Coronavirus infections in Wuhan, China.

Together with information from the World Health Organisation (WHO) and other official national and international sources have been the preposterous; including the fact that China was arresting those suffering from the infection to exterminate them to stem the spread. Other posts have been about the Wuhan market, where all kinds of meat, including snakes, bats, etc. are freely traded in.

But one of the most insightful WhatsApp posts on Coronavirus has been that of the Singaporean Minister of Health, Mr Gan Kim Yong.

Addressing Parliament, he explained that the current viral spread came from the family of Coronavirus, including the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS).

Interestingly, other milder variants of these viruses are responsible for the common colds we all suffer from intermittently.

The viruses in this family are contagious and spread through contact.

Explaining simply, Minister Young said, "The medical consensus at this moment is that the novel Coronavirus is more transmissible but appears less deadly than SARS.

"Evidence suggests that the rate of human-to-human transmission of this virus appears to be higher than that of SARS," he said.

He went on to say that the viruses were carried within droplets of an infected person when he or she coughed or sneezed.

When the droplets came into contact with the eyes, nose or mouth directly or indirectly, like when one touched an infected surface, infections occurred.

He also said there was no evidence currently that the virus was airborne.

The essence of his message was for personal hygiene, for all to wash their hands regularly and for all to desist from touching the face (eyes, nose and mouth).

I remember the Ebola virus outbreak between 2014 and 2016. We all expressively championed hand washing, with local innovations in receptacles used at entrances of institutions for washing hands.

Was it because we thought an African virus was more deadly or because it was close to our doorstep? In West Africa?

And is it because the coronavirus seems a far way off, way way off in China that we see no mobilised effort to safeguard ourselves with basic health-conscious practices? Now, hand washing has gone out of fad because Ebola is no more.

Our policy makers must revive this, as well as other sanitary practices for the prevention of diseases.

Hand washing, research shows, is one of the most important ways of avoiding sickness and spreading germs to others, including the Coronavirus.

We are a developing country and we must desist from our insanitary ways of living, the indiscriminate spitting, urinating and littering.

A campaign must be mounted by the Ghana Health Services (GHS), local authorities and the National Commission on Civic Education (NCCE) on hand-washing, personal hygiene and keeping our environment clean.

We must go back to the basics, if we are to live our lives to the fullest.

Writer's E-mail: caroline.boateng@graphic.com