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COVID-19: We Don’t Know How To Feel Anymore

Death delivers painful, lasting blows. As it declares its eternal mandate to every mortal being, no one is safe anymore, with COVID-19 posit...

Death delivers painful, lasting blows. As it declares its eternal mandate to every mortal being, no one is safe anymore, with COVID-19 positioned everywhere around the world.

Today it might be someone else dying. Next, the virus will knock on your family's doorstep. And whether you choose to slam it shut, one day it will surely visit you.

By @Comic24Derick

More tales of people succumbing to the virus, one after the other, day after day, are now part of our daily news digest. We are lost, we don’t know how to behave anymore.

The world is experiencing bereavement with shocking regularity. Not a single day passes without wailing. Dear Lord, we are confused, we are not sure to celebrate or cry. Or keep on guessing who is next to die.

During this COVID-19 era, death is everywhere, everyone is a potential victim. You too can be the next target. Everyone, the rich or even the innocent. This has been so, and it will remain as such. 

For how long, I don’t know. I wish I knew.

For how long will these deaths haunt us, no one knows. The conclusion of the disease is not known, yet our demise is certain. For now, we keep our face masks and hopes high, and maybe, just maybe, we have recorded the last statistic.

Death has no friends, competitor 

Even after witnessing death repeatedly, nobody can ever get accustomed to it. It has no allies, no competitor, it just leaves a trail of pain and anguish to the living, as the undertaker carts the lifeless body.

Already, the spirit will have departed to an unknown destination.

As you read this, someone you know or you have never met before is breathing for the final time, their final hour, sometimes without a farewell to the family or friends. The victim might be a celebrity or a commoner, but all are fatalities.   
Wearing Masks and Sanitizing has become the New Normal 
Death has become so regular these days, especially with the advent of the marauding coronavirus which has claimed millions of victims since its discovery in Wuhan City, China in December 2019.

Since then, COVID-19 has revisited every nation on earth, with developed states such as America and populous India experiencing it with a repetitive vengeance.

To date, America and India have recorded the highest numbers of deaths respectively. The former has the highest deaths in one day, pegged at more than 5,000, and a cumulative total of 600,000 deaths.

America has been hit hard. COVID-19 has stubbornly discounted the nation’s superior healthcare system, classified among the best in the world. For now, it has failed the deceased.

Among the dead were young mothers who had hoped for the future, but they died clutching to the American dream. On their death beds, medical staff stared in despair, unsure what to do next, as death hacked their ambitions, prematurely.

Streets on fire

India’s billion plus population is feeling the full wrath of the virus. Streets have become open incinerators. The severity of the deaths could be pointed to a human error. 

But it is too late now. Death cannot be reversed or wished away, it has the final say.

The tormented families are sadly left with horror testimonies of their departed families, dying in a derelict hospital, without oxygen tanks to offer them a moment of reprieve.

The death of a single person is too much to tolerate. Meanwhile, thousands more have been wiped out. Many more bear testaments of how an entire family has been afflicted by the disease.

And when death finally struck, it first targeted the breadwinner, followed by the mother, then the children in that annihilating order. Alone, confused, the surviving families were not sure how to react. Or feel.

Regular deaths have erased human feelings, it has left the world too paralysed to even remember how to weep anymore. Funerals are potential death traps. The dying is burying the dead.

Once, we assumed Africa was safe. We thought the disease was a mere hallucination, only wreaking other foreign nations. Well, Africa’s time was yet to come.

‘Celebrating’ too quickly

Before COVID-19 inflicted Zimbabwe, one minister uttered a reckless statement.

“This coronavirus that has come, these are sanctions, isn’t it? These are sanctions that have been imposed on countries that imposed sanctions on us. God has punished them.”

She further claimed that: “They are now stuck in their homes. There is nothing else for them to do. Their economies are now screaming. Isn’t it they are making ours scream too? Trump must know that he is not God.”

A few months later, her fellow ministers were wiped out, one after the other. With the borders closed, there was nowhere to run to seek medical tourism. All avenues were closed. Only the ill-equipped hospitals staring blankly at them.

COVID-19, the greatest equalizer, made the rich and poor scavenge for an elusive cure, especially in Africa. At first, deaths figures were minimal. Or massaged.When the pandemic eventually struck, the continent’s unpreparedness echoed as more deaths were recorded.

The third wave has been catastrophic for Africa, with a recent 40 percent spike in deaths, according to World Health Organization (WHO).

Conserving our pain and anguish

Hospitals, in Zimbabwe, for example, are failing to offer adequate medical attention. The vaccine rollout is better than most nations, but some trust the traditional ways of ‘treating’ the scourge.

“I used snuff, steam bathing with herbs mixed with water inside the bucket. This concoction made me recover from the disease that first attacked my husband, then myself,” revealed Charity, a COVID-19 survivor.

After this story, one assumes they have heard the last shocking tale, yet more is happening each day. Zimbabweans and their other African counterparts are desperate. They don’t have faith in the existing healthcare system anymore. 

It has failed most patients in the past, including the 2008 cholera outbreak that wiped out over 4,000 people, afflicting 98,000 others.Our fate is not in our hands, it never was. Yes, we may mask up, nations may attain vaccination herd immunity, but death is still peeping, winking for attention, and another half-chance to strike, again, and again.

We have lost control of our thinking ability. COVID-19 has altered the way people approach life. Everyone, including your loved one, is now a suspect. The saying that “till death do us part” has lost its original, intended meaning.

When one is affected, they are isolated, and probably you will not have the chance to say goodbye. Regular deaths notices have wiped away our emotions. We are tired of crying. We can't cry anymore.

The pain is excruciating, we are preserving our pain for the next death. Before our tears have dried up, more deaths befall.


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