location to the north decided to lock down
and its cases so far are 92 thousand and a
death toll of 7,326. The difference is too
large to claim pure chance.
Even if one was to be tempted to claim
so, Mexico, again in the same geographical
region also locked down and their
numbers of infection are at 94 thousand
and a current death toll of 10,167.
These figures indicate that there was a
road map on how to deal with the virus
if only the leaders had the sense to take
the route and as it is repeated oftentimes
that a strategy that hoped that the virus
would blow over and that it would be mild
is really not a strategy at all.
We need to recap that the corona virus
as such is not particularly deadly given
the statistics on hand but the issue was
that, being a highly contagious virus and
having severe respiratory symptoms the
consequence is that this would stretch the
health system.
This would mean that people with
preexisting conditions and who may need
urgent attention were disadvantaged and
hence the erroneous perception at the
beginning of the outbreak that this virus
was only dangerous to old people.
China’s acute response to the virus should
have indicated to any right thinking leader
that something serious was afoot. Why
would China use a sledge hammer to kill
a fly if the threat was mild? Intelligence
sources also indicated that there was a
serious problem in China.
Why any leader would then opt to play
roulette with his people seems to beat
logic until you put other issues into the
mix. Trump is facing an election year
and one of his campaign promises to
make America great again depended on a
strong economy.
Enter coronavirus and his promises start
to crumble and to safeguard his position
he takes a gamble on the lives of American
people with the hope that the pandemic
will just blow over and he can brag about
being a tough minded American.
If we drop down to Brazil we find another
corona denier as the president there calls
it a small flu and accuses the media of
creating hysteria in an effort to topple
him from power for refusing to take the
drastic steps other countries are taking.
This argument becomes hollow when you
realize the number of cases in Brazil is
at 530 thousand with a death toll of 30
thousand compared to Argentina next
door which locked down and the cases
there are 17 thousand with a death toll
of 5 hundred.
The difference is statistics is so wildly
wide that one wonders what type of an
ego a person would need to have to ignore
all evidence at their disposal that their
particular approach may not be working
and a change is necessary.
The corona virus saga in Europe took
an interesting turn as the response was
sloppy and sluggish in the three main
tourist destinations of Spain, France and
Italy mainly because they adopted a wait
and see stance probably borrowing a cue
from America.
They may have also been reluctant to
close their countries to the traditional
influx of tourists which is a mainstay of
their economies and they gambled that
it was a flu emanating from far away in
China and it would only affect the inflow
of the Chinese tourists.
By the time they realized that the
pandemic was out of control helped
no doubt by the cultural behavior of
close people contact and a penchant for
crowded activities the three countries felt
the full brunt of the virus.
Spain leads with an infection rate standing
at 286,718 and a death rate of 27,127,
followed by Italy with an infection rate
of 233 thousand and a death rate of just
over 33 thousand and France with a lower
infection rate of 189 thousand and a
death rate of 29 thousand.
At the height of the pandemic in Italy
the health system was so overwhelmed
that the President all but gave up until
the Chinese came in to lend a hand at
controlling the spike and helping to bring
sanity to a whipped population.
This is proof that the Chinese were ready
and available to any country that needed
help with the outbreak but it appears an
unwillingness to irritate America who
were now on a full onslaught against
China, wanting to have them held
accountable for the pandemic.
This is in total contrast to Germany next
door who took the pandemic seriously
from the outset and put in place measures
to combat it. With an equally high
infection rate of 180 thousand, Germany
had a fraction of the death rate at 8
thousand.
It is more than apparent that the
determinant factor in combating the
spread of the virus has a lot to do with
leadership qualities and that those that
have taken it as their duty to protect life
as a priority before anything else have
taken the prudent lockdown measures.
Boris in the UK dilly dallied on how to
deal with the pandemic in part because
he had practically just bullied the Britons
out of European Union and he may have
wondered if another drastic move on the
British public would be welcome from a
political angle.
It was perhaps poetic justice on his part
when he actually succumbed to the very
disease that he was trying to decide what
to do with for those that he led and it
landed him in an intensive care unit for a
few extremely tense days in Britain.
infection shoot to among the highest in
Europe at 276 thousand and have the
highest death rate in Europe overtaking
even the pitied Italians with a figure of 33
thousand.
There is a country that we need to discuss
which appears not to have necessarily
followed the general script to stem the
spread of the virus and their stand was seen
as controversial but was quite effective.
Sweden decided to approach the virus
by allowing it to spread in the country
counting on the fact that if enough people
contracted the virus there would soon be
an expected herd immunity that would
eventually be beneficial to the country.
What is remarkable about Sweden is that
they clearly communicated this to their
citizens and asked them to comply with
disciplined voluntary social distancing
measures that they not only accepted but
followed to the letter.
The level of infection in Sweden although
it was higher than its immediate neighbors,
Norway (8 thousand) and Finland (6
thousand), who locked down immediately
was at 30 thousand with a death rate of 4
thousand.
Sweden later explained that although their
death rate was low by European standards
it was unexpectedly high because they
failed to protect and isolate the elderly
who actually formed the bulk of those who
perished before they figured out what was
amiss.
But the point here is that they had a plan,
they got the population to buy in and most
remarkably managed to avoid a lock down
without catastrophic consequences. Clear
leadership again was the determinant
factor here.
What we find amazing is that although
the whole world faced the same corona
virus threat one would expect that this
was one of those moments that the world
would pull together to vanquish a common
enemy, but we realized that egos are way
bigger.
We have learnt that leadership without
conscience and humanity is actually
tyranny. It cannot ever be that the priority
of a leader is to run a country at the
expense of lives. Ironically those who
protected lives first have faster return to
business as usual scenarios.
Leadership that does not encourage
learning and adapting to change is on a
rocky path since any leader is as good as
the quality of the team of advisers that he
surrounds himself with who must never be
sycophants and yes men.
Leadership does not need to be seen but it
needs to be effective. Treating the citizenry
with respect and courtesy brings about
better results than when a leader believes
his job is beating recalcitrant subjects into
shape.
What surprised us the most was that the
world seems to be running on autopilot as
there seems to be no credible leaders out
there who can galvanize the world into
unified action. The world has become more
fragmented and there is no such thing as
a world agenda.
Yet we are touting globalization as the
answer to world problems, how do we
do this when we are actively dismantling
global cooperation and retreating to
national cocoons where we apparently feel
more safe.
We seem to have a lot of managers
running political parties and by default
governments but we don’t seem to
have leaders leading people to a better
life hence the obsession with business
statistics rather than social statistics. No
one is trying to make the world great.
That is more frightening than the novel
coronavirus!
Even having been personally infected
with the corona virus Boris has continued
to equivocate and failed to give very clear
direction to the British on how to combat
the spread of the virus. The British are
perplexed and still unsure at present.
His irresolute stance saw the rate of
Closer home we had the whole gamut
of responses from total lockdown, to
partial lockdown and no lockdown at all
with countries that have aspirations of
reactivating a common market that they
once had but cannot agree on a common
strategy, leadership egos again.
The cover piece was assembled by
the Marketing Africa editorial crew.
For feedback or any more discourse
please drop us a line at: Info@
marketingafrica.co.ke.
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