Punch Newspapers
Sections
“History teaches us that this would not be the last pandemic, epidemics are a fact of life”
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, World Health Organisation.
The popular greeting and courteous wish, Happy New Year, contains the optimistic suggestion that the year in this case, 2021, will be an improvement on the year, 2020, that faded away yesterday. Helpful and kind wish that is, for without the hope of a better future, we will all sink into despair and the decay that comes with the loss of a very valuable asset. That said, we understand that improvement does not just happen in human affairs, as a corollary, there are chances that matters may get better as much as they may get worse. That is partly why the Director-General of the WHO considered it pertinent to warn that humanity and indeed Nigerians will be living in a Fool’s Paradise if they imagine that COVID-19, which in some countries has entered a second rebound, will be the last pandemic.