During COVID-19 Era
Greetings!
I was at home during the COVID-19 lockdown. I had just finished NYSC and was about to move on with my life when the situation held me at home. I hated everything that happened during that time. Apart from being stuck at home, I saw a lot of nonsense being spread by the news and how people who were paying deep attentions to the news pulled up some strange and funny actions.
I remember clearly, during social distancing, we were in church. I was among the ministers, and we were made to sit in different spots and walk down to the altar to take on various assignments. When it was a particular man's turn, a Deacon who was elderly, he refused to come up to the altar to take his assignment, despite agreeing earlier. It was so embarrassing because I even walked up to him to encourage him, but he refused, putting the service on hold which got a lot of members murmuring.
After the church service that day, we found out that one of his sons living in Lagos had called him at the start of the service to warn him about the recent update he just got on the rapid increase of the spreading, that churches in Lagos had been shut down, and the news from his son instilled fear in him, which made him to refuse on mounting the altar for his duty.
This is exactly what happens when people glue themselves to the news 24/7. While it’s good to stay informed, paying full attention to bad news can have a detrimental effect.
I know great fear was instilled in many hearts during the COVID-19 era, especially in Nigeria, where the infection rate seemed to double hourly. People thought that breathing the next breath would surely lead to infection.
The Deacon I mentioned stopped taking assignments throughout that period because he felt he would contract the virus from using the same microphone we were using even though we did hand washing and sanitization. While his actions were a precaution, it seemed excessive given that no one in our community died from COVID-19.
If we had ignored those constant updates, we wouldn’t have been so fearful. I'm not saying COVID-19 wasn’t real, but our attention to those updates made us more scared than necessary.
Like me, there are certain news stories I don't pay attention to, no matter how trendy they are. I don't like my heart to be disturbed unnecessarily.
During COVID-19, I enjoyed seeing clips of what was happening but didn’t focus on the rising number of cases in Nigeria. What was I going to use that information for?
I remember a telecommunication company, MTN, giving free data bonuses to check updates on COVID-19. Did I use those free data subscriptions? Sure I did, but not to check COVID updates—I used it to chat.
Some people were on the news 24/7 checking the increase rate as if they're checking Livescore.
Thanks for reading.
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STOPI could remember how we struggle to do something in those days. Thanks for sharing
Yeah, remembering those struggles now is fun 😅
Good post, at least for me, the covid era needs to be rethought so it doesn't happen again.
I think, probably fear killed a lot more people than covid. And the saturation of the hospitals, the poor medical care, the abandonment of the people who needed help the most, also killed more people than covid.
This is my opinion, the opinion of a person who lived two experiences during those years. The Spanish one, one of the countries with the harshest measures in Europe, and with an excess of mportality of 130,000 dead between the years 2020-23. The other was the Swedish one, with an excess mortality in 2020 higher than that of 2019 and similar to that of 2018.
And, of course, the smart thing to do was not to listen to the news.
Greetings from Spain @kingsleyy
That era toiled with us😅.
It's the death record that was even more scaring to us. Imagine 130,000 death.
Our own, the death weren't much because we were sure records were manipulated 😅
Thank you for stopping by
It has been a pleasure to read you. Regards
Thank you🙌
Too much news or obsession with news can lead to fear and the likes to, causing mental health issues.
One need to strike a balance, know when to listen and when to say it's enough.
Information is good, but listening to much will push us to listening to wrong and misleading ones too.
Exactly!
Knowing things happening around is good but a situation where it'll talk a toil in one's health, it should be minimised 👌.
Thank you for stopping by boss
I remember that year like it was yesterday and all the hulabaloo that came with it but just like you, I was not shaken because I knew that they were outrageous.
The outrageousness was out of this world.
I wonder what happened to all the people in the inflated number of infected in Nigeria records😂
Hahaha, I guess they retired