The Imperative for Cooperation and Coordination: Together we can confront the Coronavirus

Mahendra Shah, 22nd April 2020, Earth Day

We are facing a global war of human survival against an invisible coronavirus pandemic from the world of Nature, perhaps triggered by the violence and destruction we continue to perpetrate against Nature and its millions of species.

The greatest failure of the world’s response to the corona crisis has been the lack of coordination, politically, scientifically and practically to cooperate and coordinate integrated strategic actions to control the spread of the coronavirus. The virus does not recognize political or geographical boundaries and thus the coordination imperative at national, regional and international levels is critical.

During the last one hundred years, we have had two world wars, which involved some 30 to 40 countries in direct military conflict, together resulting in over 80 million dead and another 40 million wounded that succumbed to war related injuries and diseases as well as famine. Both these wars were military conflicts in the killing fields, mainly in Europe.

During this same period, the world also faced epidemics and pandemics, namely the Spanish Flu, Asian Flu, Aids, Swine Flu, Ebola and Zika which in total infected some 2 billion people including 1.4 billion with Swine Flu, some 500 million with the Spanish flu, with some 80 million with Aids and the other four epidemics resulting in infecting some 10 million people.

It is now four months since the first corona virus death was reported in China in late December 2019 and within just 4 to 6 weeks the corona infection had arrived in a in Europe, USA and a handful of other countries. Even though countries were cut-off by shutdown of air travel, the virus travelled to every corner of the world, with infections by March 2020 affecting nearly all the countries and territories around the world.

Already over 2.6 million people have been infected with about 175,000 dead. Corona is an invisible killer. We do not know if a person, infected or not, may be a carrier. We do not see any hope of a Covid19 vaccine in the near future, recall that the 1918 Spanish flu influenza vaccine for was licensed more than two decades latter in 1945.

Today the developed countries with advanced modern medical facilities are unable to cope as they severely lack testing systems, most essential to control the spread of the virus through isolation and confinement, as well as lack of hospital beds and limited stocks of medical supplies and equipment such as ventilators. There is even a lack of face masks and protective clothing, essential just to protect the hospital nurses and Doctors in direct contact with patients.

Many countries are struggling to put together the required stocks of reliable testing systems but worldwide demand is escalating every day and already hundreds of millions of testing systems are required worldwide and there is little scope to expand production capacity to meet this demand.

There is little information on the scale of corona virus infections in South and Southeast Asia, Africa and Latin America. These regions, home to half the world’s population, lack the medical and health facilities and have limited numbers of nurses and Doctors to meet the needs under normal conditions and it is unimaginable how they will manage with Covid19 infections.

These developing regions are also normally home the one billion poor and now they facing a swelling of another billion destitute people, having lost their jobs and livelihoods in the corona pandemic. The are no safety nets and literally no social security to speak of in most countries in these regions.

In India with the notice of a four our window of lock down, some 450 million people working in the informal economy of daily labour, realizing their plight and destitution with the loss of employment and income, scrambled to return to their rural villages. Their cry was as “dying from corona virus in the presence of their families at home could be embraced as will of God, but death from hunger and malnutrition alone far from was not fathomable”.

It is only a matter of time when the inevitable corona pandemic will hit developing countries and now is the time put in place national and international relief aid and response coordination mechanisms, drawing on the experiences and lessons of the coronavirus crisis in developed countries. In the coming weeks and months these regions are also likely to face food famines and it is paramount we put in place regional and international measures and food security stocks now, otherwise the images of the 1984-85 Ethiopian famine will come to haunt us.

Why has there been a total lack of international and regional consideration of corona pandemic coordinating mechanisms? Nobody seems to have even mentioned the word coordination, as if that word is taboo? Is this the new realty in an era of nationalism, sovereignty and selfish self-interest. We should not forget that we live in an interdependent world whence the coronavirus infection is independent and of no relevance to wealth and status.

More than anything else, the greatest failure of the world’s response to the corona pandemic thus far has been that the world of political leaders, planners and decision makers, scientists and technologists, business and manufacturers and other in the chain did not come together to cooperate and coordinate timely and effective response actions and share essential medical supplies. Even in the European Union with 28 members countries and no borders, every nation took upon itself to implement its own measures against the corona pandemic and individually scrambled to source medical supplies and equipment such as ventilators.

The corona medical emergency and famine emergencies in the past have highlighted that our leaders have often failed to respond in time to the urgency of human lives being at risk of perishing. It is a sad day to see wealthy and powerful nations use their position of strength to grab the essential medical supplies, even to extent of hijacking medical supplies in transit air shipments

The grid lock against positive humanitarian change and decisive actions from positive our leaders, be it those responsible for emergency relief aid or climate action, tend to be preoccupied with maintaining their own self-interests and positions. The short term perspectives of Politicians is to get re-elected, Business leaders strive to maximize share-holder returns, Scientists are often constrained by their funders from discussing the implications of their research and people in general accept the status-quo since their priority is to earn a livelihood for the care for their family.

We need to realize that we must empower the youth and women of today to become the next generation of action-oriented leaders with conscious, commitment and care. This is critically important as for decades we have failed to respond the degradation and destruction of nature. The youth of today in a matter of years will have the power of their thumb to vote and the power of their wallet to force Governments and business to act in the interest of a sustainable, better, fairer and more equitable world.

Women, accounting for half the world’s population, in many countries have yet to break free from the societal, environmental, economic and religious conditions that keep them discriminated and suppressed. They need to self-empower to participate as leaders and as equals in all aspects of social, environmental and economic decision making. It is no coincidence that countries with women leaders have provided the best of decision-making in dealing with the current corona crisis as well as the plight of international refugees as well as the immigrants, for example in Germany and New Zealand.

In this global war between the human world on one side and the corona pandemic on the other side, humanity coming together as one with cooperation and coordination rather the competition makes not only ethical and moral sense but also would be that much more effective and economic as well.

The WHO should have been the first to set up regional and an international corona emergency medical coordinating mechanisms but this did not happen administratively as an urgent request should have come from the member states. The corona crisis is here to stay and it is not late to set up coordinated information sharing, relief aid mobilization and identifying medical supplies and equipment as well as recruiting urgent medical management personal and experts.

The United Nations should also begin to put in motion coordinating mechanisms at regional and international levels for the inevitable food famine emergencies and the poverty crisis that is on the horizon, especially in the food insecure countries. We are facing an environment of fear of inevitable market supply shortages this is exacerbating the situation as people grab food supplies and build home food security stocks. A UN coordinating mechanisms will be indispensable to build international partnerships to rebuild livelihoods as well as rehabilitate the economic meltdowns and social breakdowns impacts of lockdowns and social distancing.

The fear and human costs of this pandemic will need years and decades to heal from and one wonders how a future of respect and acceptance of one another’s race, religion, gender, wealth, status and more can be realized to build a future of living in peace and harmony. The cooperation and coordination mechanisms at local and regional levels are also more and more relevant to confronting climate change, extinction of species, air and marine pollution and more, which without timely sustainability actions will put at risk the future of humanity

Unlike any of the disasters and crisis of the last one hundred years, the corona crisis has highlighted that the peoples of the world must come together as one human race with respect for one another and create an equitable and progressive world for all living in harmony with the world of nature. The corona crisis has put us notice of the global risks of pandemics and we need to take note of the potential risks of the cumulative effects of all the damage and violence we have inflicted on nature. Whilst we face the worldwide corona pandemic, on the horizon lingers regional food famine crisis in the weeks and months ahead.

Air, Food and Water are the sustenance of life. Coronavirus stops you breathing and death comes in a matter of few days if not hours, with every breathe a struggle and feelings of drowning as life ebbs away. Famine brings every day less nutrition as the pangs of hunger rise, the body wastes away and unconsciousness takes hold and death may linger for days as life ebbs away.

We conclude with two stark video images of death, first the 1984-85 biblical famine in Ethiopia and the piling of the dead, traditionally shrouded by relatives and loved ones and second from New York this month, a fork lift delivering the dead in uniform boxed funeral caskets to a fresh mass burial channel, unmarked and with no loved ones to say goodbye. Readers, please be warned that the video images are disturbing and heart breaking our faith in humanity and life.

In Death from Famine, family with good-byes

No life without food and water

Unbearable Pangs of Hunger and thirst

Going on and on for days and days

As the energy ebbs and unconsciousness comes

Only awakening shrunk, a skeleton in bed

Hearing whispers of compassion and love

Caressing touches from loved ones

Sad and Painful but a humane death with family

http://speakingout.msf.org/ru/node/271

In Death from Covid19, alone with no good-bye

No life without air to breathe

The aching throat and dry cough

Feeling hot and burning all over

Unbearable chest and body pains

Every breath a Herculean effort

No whispers of compassion or love

No caressing touches from loved ones

Sad and Painful but an inhumane death alone