Taking personal responsibility

As a flurry of new Covid-19 cases continues to be revealed, especially in Walvis Bay, which is becoming the epicentre of the pandemic in Namibia, divergent views of how we tackle this virus going forward are also emerging.

Some have been facetious, saying things like: “May the best immune system win.”

However, what is crystal clear is that Namibia’s depressed economy and battered job market cannot afford any further closing off of the economy, as happened at the beginning of the country’s response and which continues in the Erongo Region. With job-shedding announcements becoming the order of the day, more and more families face the prospect of not having food to put on the table.

It is during this time, where further economic catastrophe looms large, that it is about each of us taking personal responsibility for wearing masks, social distancing, hand sanitising and every other precaution needed to stay safe from infection and spreading the virus. We have to learn to live with this virus. If we each take personal responsibility for our actions and take care of each other in the process, there should be no need for stringent lockdown measures that will break the economy to further pieces. This shift to taking personal responsibility, especially and most critically in public spaces, must became the new mantra for confronting this virus. The damning reality is that starvation can kill, just like this virus.