When the first few cases of the Coronavirus or Covid-19 hit South African shores, our national government responded with a state of emergency which included a lockdown that at the time said would last for 21 days.
Over 300 days later we have a new strain and close to 40 thousand or more lives lost.
At this point of the pandemic, we have all lost someone close to us or 2 degrees away from us who’s been affected by this virus.
We all pointing fingers, the government blames citizens for their behaviour and us them for how they’ve handled this whole thing.
But with close to a year now with this virus what I’ve found is that the biggest culprit is prevention fatigue.
Everyone seems to be fatigued from the handwashing, sanitizing, mask wearing and social distancing.
Maybe it’s the fact that people thought the virus would run it’s course and the old normal would be back or that the government did a horrible job at explaining how the new normal is the normal way to live now.
But overall we can blame alcohol, corruption etc… Yet the true course of lives lost and the spike we seeing now is prevention fatigue, being tired of basics of prevention.
We all have to go back to our initial paranoia, the fear and carefulness of doing things the correct way. Government and citizens, the only fatigue I have is from losing people so can we please go back to first principles because this virus never shifted from that
I’ve come to realise that we have a behaviour deficit. We know better, but we just don’t do better.
It’s easier to take the path of less resistance; although I have no idea how “basic hygiene” under this pandemic is a difficult path. It is true that most people are fatigued.