Mereja Forum

[DefendTheTruth]

There are three main strategic measures that are said to be helpful in trying to combat the advance of Corona Virus (Covid-19). The goal of the measures is supposed to be in trying to reduce the potential number of people that are going to be infected and the speed at which they could be infected.

The first is called trying to reduce the number of infected by means of Containment, which entails the measure of testing and tracing infected individuals and where possible isolating them. This is very costly and laborious, if not anything else.

The other possibility is the measure of mitigation, which is simply said trying to reduce the rate of spread of the virus and thereby flatten the curve of infection rate. This will be done through trying to delay the rate of spread by creating boundaries between those who are potentially infected and not infected and curb the means of spread, reduce the number of gatherings, distancing between people and avoiding any potential infection route of the virus.

This will specially enable the available health care system of a given country to cope with the challanges of treating the patients more efficiently and effectively. Spread out the peak by extending the time of infection.

Another possibility is yet a more stringent measure of locking down of people into their respective areas, mostly their own homes and similar spatial limitation.

China resorted to this last method and to some degree succeeded in trying to mitigate the effect of the novel virus, which stroke its country at first.

While the rest of the world is trying to reduce the possibilty of people coming together, I came across today in the internet where young people in Ethiopia are gathering themsleves in the name of volunteering to help the rest in the community wash their hands. I am not an expert in the area of health care or the more special area of epidemic study, but the means they are using seems to me at odd to what the rest of the world is undertaking.

Untrained young people gathering in the name of helping, while schools are closed to avoid gathering.
Making the impression that washing hands will be the ultimate means to protect oneself against a very virulent novel virus, could be fatal, in my view.

I am not sure how much the washing itself is hygienically sound, no trowels to dry the hands after washing the hands, which is very important, because a wet hand can even support the spread of the virus on the objects the hand may touch afterwards.

I am not an expert but my good feelings tell me that everything you have to do should be geared towards avoiding contacts instead of supporting it. If people come together the chance of making a contact amongst themselves is higher, hence more risky.

In the case of Ethiopia I may add that the only viable means to resort to is the locking down of people, limit contact at all levels! Testing, tracing, treatment and all sorts of care might be out of reach for us for now, unfortunately. Draw a lesson from Italy, which is a very sad situation and that scene shouldn't be repeated anywhere in this world.

[DefendTheTruth]

World is under attack, let's pray for Italy and the rest of the world.

Italy's citizens are being shed like trees, may God lend them His mercy.

Please wait, video is loading...

I posted this post just before a day, the cases has now already reached over 300,000, the third 100K was reached just within 2 or 3 days. The second 100K was at least reached within 12 days.

Let's all pray for the world!

[DefendTheTruth]

While Ethipia is considering washing hands a major factor to reduce or stop the spread of the so called corona virus and mobilize people to come out and support the task en-masses, many countries of Europe, which are dubbed "the new epicenter of the epidemic/pandemic" by WHO, are saying the major factor in stemming the epidemic is keeping the so called "social distancing".

There it is called you need to keep a minimum of 1:30 M distance to the next person at any time and anywhere or better 2:0 Meters to see the chance of spreading the virus reduced to a minimum.

Germany has now enacted a directive called "contact prohibition directive" of which a contravening behaviour will be punished by a hefty monetary fine.

So, Ethiopia needs to reconsider its practice of bringing people in the name of supporting others get their hands washed may entail a higher risk and cost us more and exacerbate the problem.

Ethiopia needs to reduce and even try to prohibit social contacts, without a delay and learn from others where there is more experience with fighting against the spread of the deadily virus.

The earlier you act the better the result in fighting the deadily virus.

[DefendTheTruth]

Look in the following video which says that if you have the symptoms, then start to keep your social distance of 2 meters. This could be a flawed proposition, as far I understood it.

- It is not only for those who are already sick and hence show the symptoms that the provision is intended for, it is for all people, wether they are already sick or not, like many European countries are doing and implementing directives of contact prohibition. Why is it different in Ethiopia?

- It has been reported by different media sources that this specific virus is capable of infecting someone from another one who is just a carrier, it is an asmptomatic infection virus (which has according to a wikipedia entry the following meaning: "In medicine, a disease is considered asymptomatic if a patient is a carrier for a disease or infection but experiences no symptoms). So, why are ethiopian medical professionals letting such a misleading information get disseminated by a major state run television?

Look at around the beginning of the following video:

[tlel]

If China is friendly to Tplf/Shabia but not to Ethiopians so tplf only lobbies to itself to get help from China. We know Tigray has China flag fever, even to the point painting their dogs and body so that China can see them

[tlel]

The main issue is protecting the elderly, Sweden just foucsed on the Elderly and those who are immuno compromised. The rest can recover themselves. But knowing the enemies within and outside, they are waiting for Ethiopians to drop like a fly that is why they are starving them, using many methods

[DefendTheTruth]

Hope many people and those charged with handling this major crisis have got the main essence of this pandemic, which is buying time.

Let me say, the more you buy time to yourself, the more lives you could spare and avert a national catastrophe.

For what ever reason this time Africa has been spared from being the first play ground of the carnage and thereby assisted to draw a lesson from those who have been, unfortunately, the scene of the showdown of a global pandemic already.

The past is the key for the future they say and we can hope people would pay attention to the graphs of the following dashboard of the John Hopkins University Research center.

Please click on each country and see how the graph runs, at the right-lower part of the page.

DG of WHO said once you might have a window of an opportunity to make a difference and that window is, i think , less than a time period of a month after the first confirmed case is reported to avert a catastrophe.

DG of WHO said again just today, the so called "social distancing" is a good defensive instrument to fight against the pandemic, but if we want to defeat it, then start testing people every where there are suspects, isolate them and track those who might have come in close contact with them.

But my impression is that Ethiopia has not even started social distancing measures yet in earnest, while over 1 Billion of the over 7 Billion citizens of this planet are locked down and told to stay at their home.

Still there are meetings of different types, people are travelling with overcrowded public transports, and many other services are provided with such overcrowding scenes.

We should act and try to findout which lose would outweighs, strict measure today or delaying it and helping people to prepare themselves to have something to subsist on at the cost of losing more human lives in the future. I am not an expert but my feeling is that Ethiopia can't cope with this catastrophe if it may strike.

https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html

[DefendTheTruth]

G20, what does it mean?

In a short sentence: a club of nations of richest top 20 countries (of the over 200 countries in total) but still control over 80% of the world's wealth.

Membership of the G20 consists of 19 individual countries plus the European Union. The EU is represented by the European Commission and by the European Central Bank. Collectively, the G20 economies account for around 90%[4] of the gross world product (GWP), 80% of world trade (or, if excluding EU intra-trade, 75%), two-thirds of the world population,[2] and approximately half of the world land area.

The PM addressed some of the issues i was talking here in my yesterday's post, it seems to me, as someone who is not an expert in the area, the right step in the right direction.

The diaspora menga, the ball is in your court now, but I know that you are incapable of acting (of course that includes this writer).

[DefendTheTruth]

The current PM will be remembered in history, after his win the Nobel Peace Prize as the first ever Ethiopian, on how he and his government will going to handle this crisis and avert a pending global pandemic to save Ethiopia.

[DefendTheTruth]

The number of cases reached today already around 416,000, an increase over a 100,000 in a single day. (415.876).

Tomorrow this number will hit over 600,000, i am afraid. We are rapidly approaching the 1 Million mark, specially if the pace keeps on the same level, and will be there probably before the weekend.


Still it doesn't mean the number of deaths but the potential of infecting others will increase with that dramatically and the spread will rise exponentially.

God spare the world.

[DefendTheTruth]

Probably, Ethiopia's strategy of containment is working to at least certain degree. Those charged with dealing with the highly contagious and deadly virus seem to have it so far under grip, relatively, with the deployed means of testing and as much as possible also tracking and isolating of suspected cases. They didn't want to wait until someone is being tested positive to do so, somehow proactively.

An indication that their strategy is working is that most of the cases confirmed so far in the country are from those who have been already under tracking of the authorities.

Let's be clear with the issue here: more than its cost in terms of human lives its cost in social- and economic terms are more devastating both for the society and the country at large.

Mitigation, seems to me, is a resource intensive exercise (perhaps in terms of direct cost or cost of lost opportunities).

[DefendTheTruth]

It has been said many times by the experts in the area that the magnitude of the effect of the infection throught the corona-virus is dependent on the number of the virus (pathogenic agent) that our body may have been exposed to and had to take in. So reducing the number or the degree of exposure of our body to the source of the germ will also reduce the effect it causes to our body, even after it may enter into our body.

This can be done, among others, by keeping a stringent hygienic practices of our body and our environment. Probably wearing masks may also support, according to some reports.

Something that has not been said so far about this virus, but could be important to understand better is that the number of infected people is much larger than the number reported as "confirmed" by the concerned authorities or institutions. This also means that the statistics based on this "confirmed" cases and reported as such may not reflect the true reality.

There is a new report that I came across in the internet which suggests that the Fatality-Rate-Case (FRC) could be as low as leth than 1% (0.37% to be exact in citing the reported figure). This should be, assuming it is correct, a relieving news of many of our current concerns.

While many western countries, which have the capacity to threat the patients of the disease, are trying to spread out the rate of the infection over a longer time period so that their resources may not have to be overwhelmed at once and many patients have to die unnecessarily, they are also keeping their eyes on the end of the story. This is the case for example by the likes of South Korea and Germany, for example, which have treated their patients well and managed to reduce the number of fatalities to a relatively low level.

At the same time they are also keeping their eyes on the ultimate goal of developing the so called herd immunity, where the danger of infection will be reduced to negligible level. To achieve this they are already contemplating about relieving the strict regulations of social-distancing and allow some level of infection rate to happen, so that this could finally lead to the level of immunization of around 60 to 70 % of herd immunity.

Ethiopia's current strategy of containment seems to be working in trying to keep the rate of infection to a low level by trying to track the confirmed cases and isolating the suspected and confirmed cases and reducing the potential of transmissions. Through that the country has also managed so far that its already dire resources of treating the patients were not overwhelmed by an inflow of patients.


Needless to say that this is a costly exercise which is having its big impact on the economy of the nation and that of many many citizens. Many economic activities are impaired and as such the policy is not sustainable, without a major repercussions for the society and the nation at large. If by some coincidence or luck a vaccine could be developed early enough, then we can be spared of such worries. But there must be always a plan B where we are basing our plans on uncertainity in this case.