It Is Time For a United Fight and Not Blame Game

The chorus for action against frontline workers seemed to be growing in recent weeks and it’s a dangerous trend as it already distracting the smooth functioning of our campaign against the pandemic in the most crucial time.

I don’t think any frontline worker would have done anything to the returnees or any district with ulterior motive. Human error happened and its bound to happen when we are dealing with a totally new and sometimes chaotic situation. Of course, we should always learn from the shortcomings and take corrective measures. But If anybody thinks that our approach should have been perfect from the beginning when we are dealing with Covid-19 then you are asking for the impossible as nobody has done that so far including the World Health Organisation or USA. When the endemic was raging in Wuhan China, WHO said that it was safe to travel to and from the province. The WHO discouraged people from wearing mask except the health workers and its officials also said on record that corona virus could survive only for few minutes outside the body. All along it has been advocating that Covid-19 is not airborne but now it is at the verge of accepting that it could happen in some settings. So even WHO got it wrong on many instances and it is also still learning. The only super power and the most advanced country, USA has suffered the most because the situation was badly handled. Donald Trump did not take the threat of Covid-19 seriously and he even said that the virus would go away with the warm weather. When cases surged, he threatened India to supply hydroxychloroquine and he called it a wonder drug giving false hope to the people. None of this worked and now USA has more than thirty lakh positive cases and more than 1 lakh and thirty thousand deaths. Boris Johnson, the Prime minister of United Kingdom initially wanted to let the disease run its own course to achieve herd immunity among the population but it misfired and he himself ended up getting infected. There are more than forty-five thousand deaths in UK now. Likewise, situation was also mishandled at some stage in Italy, France, Spain, Russia and Brazil.

However, till today we have not seen any leader tendering apology or resigning or being punished. But its ironical that some people in this part of the world, are hell bent on punishing frontline workers for their shortcoming as if they are hunting for a trophy. These people seem to be totally oblivious of how our frontline workers are giving their service under the most challenging situation with poor infrastructures, equipment and shortage of manpower etc. Unintentional human error is inevitable sometimes when the situation is overwhelming. We are talking about SOPs not being followed, but SOPs of GOI, ICMR and state governments have been frequently changed on the basis of evolving situation and so it has never been static. However, we should be thankful to God as till now nobody has died in the state in spite of having hundreds of cases. But we cannot remain complacent because there is no guarantee that the situation will not get worse. The cases may surge, many may die and health system could be overwhelmed. Some districts could become worst affected and the need to bring health workers from other district may arise. But in that situation, you cannot continue to hunt down the frontline workers and also push them to work. If this trend is not put to a stop once for all, the frontline workers specially the health workers will no longer be motivated or willing to risk their lives in rendering their services to the people when the situation becomes worse. Encouragement and appreciation are essential elements to lift up the morale of any work force during crises but threat and intimidation will do the opposite. I feel that the leaders of any organisations should channelise their energy in strengthening governments efforts in making their community safer by making facility and home quarantine more effective, taking local measures to protect the elderly and people with comorbidities and also try to imbibe discipline and civic sense among their people to reduce transmission. They also should have the magnanimity to accept that whatever shortcomings has happened or likely to happen is not intentional even though they have every right to ask the authority to take corrective measures. We cannot bring back whatever is gone but we can strengthen our future efforts from what we learnt and that should be the guiding principle for all if we are to contain Covid-19 in our state.

C Tetseo
Diphupar, Dimapur