Facing change with a highly contagious virus for which we have neither a cure nor inoculation vaccine, with everything being in shutdown, including Parliament and public protest, people around the world seem to have been in hibernation, tolerant of excesses.
by Victor Cherubim
There are reports that the Government in UK has been sending emergency free food parcels to critically extremely vulnerable (CEV) persons on a weekly basis since the outbreak of the Coronavirus pandemic to their homes. Many of them were able to get besides this box of supplies, priority for supermarket home deliveries as well as help for meeting their basic care needs. This programme called “Operation Shield “was organised for the most vulnerable to avoid them leaving their homes and minimising contact with other members of family who generally were doing the shopping chores.
The needy, the Supermarkets and Amazon delivery service all benefitted.
But the thoughts in the minds of the many was how long was this munificence going to last? Will there be a hidden cost? They never anticipated that their free travel in peak hours will be stopped.
Besides, it was received by some with distant anxiety. As we all know the Brits are a very proud people, the vulnerable after the pandemic more sceptical, more so anything given free is always questioned. How long would they have to get the same quota of a bag of potatoes, skimmed milk, oranges along with other foodstuffs, which they may not be their normal diet or their “cuppa tea”. We are told in the typically British tradition some of the excess food was transferred to charities who came and collected it from their homes.
Others stored the weekly boxes in their garages to consume as and when required. Still
others wondered if they could stop these “free gifts” altogether, the “wise thought” of a Civil Servant at Whitehall?
Of course, the pandemic has been dreaded, but the knee jerk reactions by the altruistic elements of society and of governments are now starting to be questioned.
Little did we know or have sense how severely the pandemic would hit us. For past 7 to 8 weeks have been a “different world, “something unlike anything we have known.
Has anyone really benefitted by Coronavirus?
Facing change with a highly contagious virus for which we have neither a cure nor inoculation vaccine, with everything being in shutdown, including Parliament and public protest, people around the world seem to have been in hibernation, tolerant of excesses.
Suddenly with “lift off” of “shutdown” we are seeing and hearing dissent.
In Hyde Park Corner, West London today, Jeremy Corbyn’s brother Piers Corbyn was arrested for his protest march and for stating that “5 G Towers” installed over buildings, including over hotels and YMCA hostels enhance Coronavirus?
We are told avoiding Doctor’s surgeries, A& E Hospitals during the pandemic makes good sense. But did you know that almost everything about the way we live, eat, work and play has been transformed. Hospitals are getting empty as people are scared to enter them. The number of face to face encounters with General Practitioners (GP’s) in surgeries has dropped by 90 %. Will is change soon?
The health gap between the rich and the poor too has grown wider, already wide from a decade of austerity, of cuts to social services, to benefits and health care.
Should technology take over man?
Among with the three “T’s” – Tracing, Tracking and Testing, we now have a glaring debate over whether Technology research should receive more funding from governments. Tech companies and persons are lobbying governments for more “remote everything”. Oracle, Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook, and Google are all in the act. The issue is government funding for private enterprise.
Bill Gates, Eric Schmidt, Jeff Bezos, Jack Ma among others are all clamouring for more funding. Of course, they have done much for progress. They have also spent their lives
demonstrating that there is no problem that technology cannot fix. The pandemic for them and for many others was a golden opportunity. It has made them richer.
We are told there is Home schooling, Tele-Health, e-Medicine, -e-commerce, Tele Conferencing, Tele-voting, doubling funding for Quantum Information Science and Hyper-sonics. Will public services be cut to accommodate this funding?
Remote learning is being tested today as never before. Schools when reopened are planning to divide the school day into shifts and kindergarten children 4-year-olds we are told, are going to experiment wearing Mexican size hats as they cannot be made to understand what’s social distancing.
What we may be forgetting is that education is a two-way process – the tutor and the trained. For the very young, time spent in nature” enhances” toddlers’ capacity to learn. Likewise, tech-health misses an important ingredient the symbiotic relationship between personal face to face contact with your G.P.
Hard choices for investing will need to be made and who should benefit? Hard choices for investing in humans, on Ayurveda medicine, on our doctors, nurses and teachers and Public Health Inspectors than on pure technological research for the sake of research for a small country must be debated. But as it stands, we are very likely to do both?
Where do we want Sri Lanka to be when Coronavirus is contained?
I anticipate that there will be a new way of doing everything not only in Sri Lanka but worldwide. But at the same time, there is the debate between accelerating technology and the ethics of private funding and allocation by governments? we need evidence based debate to fund technology. The pros and cons of spending scarce resources on technology when we have a massive debt crisis may not be wanted or warranted for the present? Who knows?
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