COVID-19 mode of spreading in the US and Europe needs to be studied by countries like the Gambia. First and foremost, the Governments saw it as a foreign decease like Ebola and they were expecting to give their usual support to vulnerable groups in foreign countries. Instead of taking preventive measures, they allowed it to incubate. Since the younger generation have more resistance, it was easier for the young to become asymptomatic carriers who easily infected each other and ultimately infected their parents and grandparents. This is how COVID-19 became a PANDEMIC.
In order to address the PANDEMIC, two preventive strategies had to be adopted. The first was to intensify research to get a vaccine to eradicate the PANDEMIC as many countries have done with polio. The other is to lock down and identify those infected in order to put them in a safe environment to promote their recovery and stop the spread of the illness.
The economic and social cost has gone beyond the capacity of industrialized countries to shoulder.
In the Gambia, life is back to normal. Fewer and fewer people are putting on face masks. Handshakes are being forced on people who even try to show a better example of limiting physical contact. Children go to school and enter buses without putting on mask or maintaining social distance. The Education and Health Ministries should liaise to address the vulnerable state of the children.
