Well, I'm getting quite an education from the ER doc in Surabaya. She tells me that they (the medical system) have now lost control of the virus there and that it has spread everywhere. Doctors and nurses at her hospital, including she herself, are getting sick. Indonesia, she believes, is in the range of becoming another Wuhan or Italy. Slow and incompetent government response has masked the scale of the outbreak. Sound familiar?
The statistics we receive from on high are inaccurate and based on very, very partial information indeed, as people are simply not being tested. 155 tests a day on a population of 280,000,000. And as she added, "That's insane." But Indonesia, as is readily obvious, is quite ill-equipped for handling a pandemic. Their medical systems, abilities, and supplies are relatively primitive and scarce compared to western countries or fully developed Asian countries.
The one bit of happier news is that she confirms and concurs with research that suggests that the coronavirus does not thrive well in hot tropical climates, with the caveat that those factors (temperature, humidity and sunlight) will only cut the virus's ability to grow in half--so it does not exactly kill the virus, per se.
At the end of April, she reminds, we will enter the month of Ramadan, where Muslims will traditionally be taking part in a number of community functions, including gathering in mosques. Yikes. Thoughts and prayers may be the worst possible thing at this time.
Similarly, I read this morning about a Christian pastor in Bandung (Java) who had infected half of his flock with coronavirus. It would not surprise me at all to find that he was "laying on hands" in order to confer the Lord's protection.
Goodness.
Well, at least Trump's big Easter gatherings were nixed by those in the know. Something to thank God for, after all.
The statistics we receive from on high are inaccurate and based on very, very partial information indeed, as people are simply not being tested. 155 tests a day on a population of 280,000,000. And as she added, "That's insane." But Indonesia, as is readily obvious, is quite ill-equipped for handling a pandemic. Their medical systems, abilities, and supplies are relatively primitive and scarce compared to western countries or fully developed Asian countries.
The one bit of happier news is that she confirms and concurs with research that suggests that the coronavirus does not thrive well in hot tropical climates, with the caveat that those factors (temperature, humidity and sunlight) will only cut the virus's ability to grow in half--so it does not exactly kill the virus, per se.
At the end of April, she reminds, we will enter the month of Ramadan, where Muslims will traditionally be taking part in a number of community functions, including gathering in mosques. Yikes. Thoughts and prayers may be the worst possible thing at this time.
Similarly, I read this morning about a Christian pastor in Bandung (Java) who had infected half of his flock with coronavirus. It would not surprise me at all to find that he was "laying on hands" in order to confer the Lord's protection.
Goodness.
Well, at least Trump's big Easter gatherings were nixed by those in the know. Something to thank God for, after all.
No comments:
Post a Comment