“FREE AMERICA NOW”.
This is one of the many tweets by Elon Musk to express his frustrations over restricted movements and lockdowns.
Honestly, billionaire tech genius rants hit differently.
Elon Musk has been on one of such rants lately on his Twitter page. He can’t seem to wrap his head around this pandemic or the measures that have had to be taken to curtail it. Thing is, some of us are equally perplexed because his rants have us trying to salvage the ‘iconic’ image we have of him. He thinks the measures are grossly exaggerated and he just wants his factory to be re-opened.
He is not alone in his thoughts as protests are taking place in different places around the world right now bemoaning the effects of business shutdowns.
The U.S is struggling with over 30 million citizens filing for unemployment. World leaders have never been faced with a more difficult option. Human lives or Economy?
In Nigeria, Access Bank CEO, Herbert Wigwe, announced that the bank plans to reduce the workforce by about 70% which is about 3,000 people. The remaining members of the workforce will also take a pay cut. Many start-ups have announced the same. People are losing their sources of livelihood at a time when they probably need it the most.
SO HUMAN LIFE OR ECONOMY?
Are we even talking about this?
Are we going to act like there will be an economy to fight for if we go extinct or if by some selective process, the best of us gets taken away?
If we don’t go out, we’ll never know they say. That’s the only way to build herd immunity, I keep hearing.
Really? Do you want to bet on your immune system strong guy?
Do you?
Herd immunity is a form of indirect protection from infectious disease that occurs when a large percentage of a population has become immune to an infection, whether through previous infections or vaccination, thereby providing a measure of protection for individuals who are not immune
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_immunity
According to Healthline , there are several reasons why this kind of approach does’t work for COVID-19 yet – Some of the reasons being
- Vaccinations are the safest way to practice herd immunity in a population.
- The research for antivirals and other medications to treat COVID-19 is ongoing.
- Scientists don’t know if you can contract SARS-CoV-2 and develop COVID-19 more than once.
Basically, practice good hygiene and social distancing.
OK,GOOD NEWS.
There is good news , The latest clinical trials of remdesivir, an anti-viral drug originally developed to treat Ebola, have been encouraging. The drug has been approved for emergency use by the FDA in the US.
In the UAE, a patent has has been granted for the development of an innovative and promising treatment for COVID-19 infections using stem cells. The treatment was developed by a team of doctors and researchers at the Abu Dhabi Stem Cell Center, ADSCC, and involves extracting stem cells from the patient’s own blood and reintroducing them after activating them. A 100% success was recorded in 73 patients COVID-19 patients.
Hopefully, we’ll get back to our ‘lives’ soon.
