Given this week’s Covid-19 updates, it is more evident the rapid spread of the virus that causes Covid-19 has reached the Namibian air. Beyond reasonable doubt, the Namibian citizens now believe the declaration by the World Health Organisation (WHO) that coronavirus outbreak is truly a pandemic and the current world daily news broadcasts tell the whole story. Our hearts and prayers go to the families that have lost their loved ones to this virus. 

As the number of confirmed Covid-19 cases increase, we thank President Geingob for his decisive leadership, particularly on mitigation strategies to trace and manage the virus. Indisputably, decisions such as the lockdown of highly affected areas have saved lives and will continue to save many more. 

While measures to contain coronavirus depends heavily on human behaviour, it is worrying to witness a complete ignorance of many Namibian citizens who still decline to observe preventative measures such as social distancing and wearing of masks.
As a contribution to the fight against the deadly Covid-19, I write to share my opinion aimed at awakening the Namibian citizens to the deepening new reality of the human existence. Dear Namibians, remember that not long ago in this world, life was different. In all nations globally, children left homes for school every morning and parents set their daily routines to provide for their families. Institutions of higher learning, universities and colleges all over the world prepared programmes to train students to develop the capacity necessary for the labour market that drives the economy. 

At length, nearly everyone in the world was working towards a goal and work was done in places of choice. Home was primarily known to be a place of shelter, the place from which we left each morning and to which we returned each evening. Individual human activities in our lives went on undisrupted, with the involvement and participation of others, usually loved ones. Nothing was more desiring then travelling to visit the city and many other public places of interest.  

While it is difficult for us to forget the freedom and enjoyment of the beautiful times above, I write to add volume to the urgent call by the health ministry in Namibia for us to adhere to the new preventative measures put in place to combat Covid-19. To do this, I bring to your attention episodes of Covid-19 news that made headlines. 

Nearly three months ago, I read a letter by a journalist from Milan, Italy’s pulsating heart and thriving city.  In the letter, the journalist expressed the country’s struggle amidst its succumbing to the coronavirus pandemic. He said for weeks they felt as if it was always night-time: every day, every hour, every moment. There was suffering in their hospitals, which were completely full and on the brink of collapse. Every night the updated statistics on coronavirus felt as if they belonged to a wartime era: 500, 600, more than 700 deaths a day and Italians were stuck in their homes. They took pride in their medical system, like it were a World Cup trophy, and every day they thanked the nurses and doctors from far away, giving them virtual standing ovations from their balconies, singing their national anthem together at times scheduled on social media. They did these while sending messages of warning to the whole world to get ready for the coming of the invisible world enemy, coronavirus. ‘We are shouting: you need to stop and go inside!’, the journalist said. 

In the United States this week, the death toll for Covid-19 has exceeded one hundred thousand.  In every second, hospital reception in major cities are flooded with new arrivals of critical Covid-19 patients gasping for breath. Doctors in those hospitals are overwhelmed with treating coronavirus patients, as their intensive care units have become the new war zones, the battling ground for human survival.  
The devastating effect of the coronavirus pandemic is everywhere. In the United Kingdom, hundreds and thousands of people have lost their lives. In London alone, it has been reported that the number of Covid-19 infections has risen above thirty-three thousand. Time after time, sounds of emergency movement of medical ambulances and machines trying to keep people alive are constantly heard in their streets. And casualty nurses and health caretakers collapse at the trauma of the daily increasing number of the dead. This is the deepening health crisis the whole world is witnessing.  

In India, the same phenomenon has unfolded. There is also a horrific mounting of causality on India’s frontline, with tens of thousands of new cases every day. The death toll is doubling so fast that they cannot even dig the graves quickly enough. 
Due to overwhelming numbers of patients, frontline health workers in many industrialised states like Brazil have expressed that it is heart-breaking to watch people dying from Covid-19 and the cry of people heavily affected by this pandemic is evident that nobody can tell the timeline. Particularly as convoys of the military move around at night in search of more land to bury the dead. 

Fellow Namibians, I sincerely urge you to please take precautions and play your part to save lives. Let’s abide by the strict regulations and health guidelines set by the Ministry of Health and Social Services to prevent the further spread of coronavirus. Undoubtedly, our adherence to those measures will surely supress its transmission. We can do it, collectively. We can set an example, again. We can slow down its speed of infection and prevent single infections from infecting communities. Surely, your social distancing, hand sanitising and regular hand washing will break coronavirus’s chain of transmission. This is how we can jointly defeat this pandemic. It is possible.