It has been the element missing from the campaign to contain the spread of covid-19 and bring it under control altogether. Until last week not many had seen a patient they knew or the places where critical cases are treated. Few had seen a neighbour taken ill and die. They have not been to the funeral of a covid-19 victim. Only health workers were privy to this sort of information. The disease has largely been faceless and difficult for people to relate to in a flesh and bones sense. That probably explains why they had relaxed their vigilance as the initial shock and fear began to wear off resulting in the recent spike in covid-19 cases especially in Kigali. The number of those falling sick was also small. There were more recoveries than new infections and or long deaths did not exceed four. Reminders by officials of the ministry of health and the police that covid-19 is real, present and dangerous when it was sort of anonymous and invisible only added to the mystery. The government has now corrected that initial omission and covid-19 is no longer an anonymous, mysterious thing. They have shown us real people who have recovered from the disease. Those people have given testimony of how debilitating covid-19 can be and in a very short time. The way they say it, it is a harrowing experience that no one should go through and so have urged the rest of us to do all that is necessary to stay safe. The ministry of health has taken us (via the media) inside treatment facilities and shown us patients, some in critical condition and on machines helping them to stay alive but that might not necessarily save them. It is a scary sight. A little earlier, the son of the first covid-19 victim in Rwanda had come out and in a sense given the disease flesh. Here was a real person, son of someone who had fallen to the disease, telling us that the person we knew only as a number was actually his father. He even pledged to work for the common good in memory of his father When the old man had died, he had only been identified by his age and trade as a cross-border truck driver. It was one of those high risk occupations and so his succumbing to the virus was sort of expected. It is, of course, true that in the first days of covid-19 in Rwanda there had been the death of two other individuals that, although not identified, were real enough to be recognised. One was a young police officer who had been on peace-keeping duty in another country. She elicited sympathy for dying so young and admiration for falling in the line of duty. The other, a military officer, a little older, also on peace-keeping mission, triggered the same kind of response. It was only by accident that we saw pictures of a real person, a family man, who had fallen to the disease. Pictures of his funeral and those of his wedding and his family appeared on social media briefly before they were taken down after a public outcry. There have been other deaths due to covid-19, but they have largely been kept out of public view. They have been identified only by their age and gender. And so, many do not quite feel its immediacy and danger, which is perhaps why they call it baringa (phantom). There have also been many recoveries, but they too have been only numbers. It was therefore about time that there was a new communication strategy to bring home to many Rwandans how devastating covid-19 can be. It had become necessary to jolt us out of complacency resulting from ignorance or the false assumption that the disease is a distant thing and will pass, or even getting used to hearing about it. When HIV/AIDS was ravaging large parts of the world, messages of its menace and consequences of reckless behaviour were everywhere. They could be very frightening. But they were also accompanied by pleas for behaviour change. Maybe it is time for similar messages. It seems some people had recovered from the initial shock and fear of novelty. They must be shocked again by the reality of infection and death on a scale not seen before. Tough, targeted measures are needed in these times and for most people these are preferable to total lockdown. The views expressed in this article are of the author.
