General

Desensitisation, in this regard, is the phenomenon where the same people in our Ghanaian society that were very much concerned about the impact and threat of the novel coronavirus on our health and livelihood at large, have developed a much weaker emotional response to current COVID-19 issues. This is definitely partly due to the fact that, when we receive continual messages about the dangers of the COVID-19 over a long period of time, this inadvertently contributes to our desensitisation. I fell victim to this yesterday… to the desensitisation thingie, not coronavirus. This is an opinion piece. I remember Foster telling me how he had shopped for two whole months’ worth of food in preparation for the lockdown, and me thinking “well that means I have to shop for three months’ worth of food if he’s is shopping for two… gotta be extra prepared”. This was late March, when COVID paranoia was at its peak, and for good reason too.  The first day I returned to the office after the lockdown got lifted, I was in full hazmat-mode: I had gloves on… and spare gloves for my spare gloves for my other spare gloves… I wore an N95 face mask with an additional half a dozen spare masks on standby for if someone were to touch my worn mask… and about a gallon of hand sanitizer in very short reach for good measure. Got hospital grade disinfectant for the office too. I mean, you can never be too careful in these times, right?  Right. Fast forward to yesterday and I instinctively got slightly frustrated when Alan’s receptionist insisted very firmly that I go back and grab a face mask from the car before going up to see him. Why was frustration my initial reaction and not gratefulness for reminding me to safeguard my own life? During my walk back to the parking lot, I wondered the extent to which we as a people are getting desensitised to the threat of COVID-19. Over the weekend, the President of Ghana mandated the Police to enforce the wearing of face masks in public. This is in response to the recent spike in the number of confirmed cases, amongst other matters. We need to all follow this instruction because a lot of people have been paying much more attention to the sanitiser part of the solution than the face mask part, moi inclusive, regrettably. Sanitisers are good. They keep your hands clean and as long as you don’t touch your face, and contaminated surfaces that you come into contact with do not get to infect you. That’s all well and good. Still, you need the face mask, maybe even more than the hand sanitisers. Let me explain. When someone is infected, the virus responsible named the Sars-CoV-2 virus will hijack the cells of the living person and begin to replicate itself. As it continues to make copies of itself in the infected body, it will eventually reach the cells in the lungs. When multiplication of the Sars-CoV-2 virus in the cells reach a certain point, the newly made viruses will burst out of the cells and become suspended in your bodily fluids. An example of your bodily fluids is whatever watery droplets that come out when you cough or speak. When an infected person coughs, they are basically spraying tiny infected droplets known as aerosols into the air, and that’s not even the scary part. One single cough from an infected person can produce up to 3000 droplets. So unless both your nostrils come with its own naturally-made sanitising filter that protect you against the tiny infected aerosols suspended in the air that you might breathe into your lungs, WEAR YOUR FACE MASK! It gets scarier! There have been reports that asymptomatic transmissions contribute to about 50% to 80% of COVID-19 confirmed cases. It means infected people that are not actively coughing or showing any signs of illness are transmitting the most. We have been so desensitised that we seem to forget easily that these should trigger us to be more vigilant. You won’t be able to readily tell if someone is sick. It gets even scarier!! Valentyn Stadnytskyi, Philip Anfinrud, Adriaan Bax and Christina E Bax. These four published a study concluded that COVID-19 can, in some instances, be transmitted through speech… THROUGH SPEECH!! Study showed that just uttering the words “stay healthy” sprays thousands of invisible droplets. Why wouldn’t you want to wear a face mask? Protect yourself. Sound out “stay healthy” from your own lips and you’d find that it is very possible to spray very tiny droplets saying those two words. At this very moment as I’m typing these words, which is Friday 19th June 9:21am, the Ghana Health Service website reports of 12,929 confirmed cases, which will surely rise to over 13,000 confirmed cases by the time this gets published Monday morning. THIRTEEN THOUSAND is very far from the just TWO confirmed cases that Ghana’s Health Minister Kwaku Agyemang-Manu announced on the 12th of March. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has this clipart that showed how one infected person infects 2.5 people on average in 5 days, and 406 others within 30 days. I believe the current spike in the number of confirmed cases is as a result of us not following the recommended safety measures like social distances and the wearing of face masks. The Government of Ghana is experiencing her fair-share of a beatdown due to the pandemic. Less than a year ago, Ghana was continuously touted as the rising shining star from West Africa, literally one of Africa’s fastest growing economies in the region. But due to this pandemic, businesses were closed and with that came a myriad of fiscal issues. The recently published Fiscal Developments Report of the Bank of Ghana showed that our country lost out on GH¢3.6 billion during the months of January, February and March. The figure came from the estimated national revenue and grants inflow of GH¢13.9 billion as against the reduced actual inflow of GH¢10.4 billion. GH¢3.6 billion could have funded a lot of national projects. I also think the aviation sector has taken the worst beating

George Floyd tested positive for COVID-19.  What has that got to do with his death? Absolutely nothing! If your brother had asthma, and someone intentionally introduced smoke into his room, and he died, you would be very upset if the system said “well he had asthma, so nothing to see here”. Look up ‘Proximate Cause of Death’ and you’d find that even if Mr Floyd was carrying the plague, someone’s knee pressing on his neck for almost 9 minutes cancels out all other probable causes. Lots to discuss. This is an opinion piece. Do NOT shoot the messenger. It is tempting to say we have tribalism back home to pay attention to rather than systemic racism far away in the United States of America. But too many a time does a powerful movement start and then nothing happens afterwards, be it at home in Ghana or elsewhere. I hope this is not one of those. That is why we’re all adding our voice. The best way we can effect change as part of a greater community is if we all add our voice. A lot of the leaders of America today can far too easily drown the voices of those currently advocating. If you can lend your voice to make your brothers’ and sisters’ issue be heard, do it! While John Agyekum Kufuor was President of Ghana, I personally heard many people brag about how they were related to him. “Oh, Kufuor? Yeah I know him… he’s my mother’s cousin’s brother’s wife’s nephew on the father side”… that kind of thing. Why? Well maybe it’s because everybody wants to be associated with something major and memorable. Maybe it’s because everybody wants justification to overdramatise their role in relevant history, even if it means shamelessly professing to prove some kind of lineage to a powerful man only by word of mouth. Well, something major and memorable is happening in America, the world’s biggest economy with a GDP of over 20 trillion US dollars just last year. This goes deeper than your average everyday protest or some hashtag culture. You might have heard about it. Here is your chance to be part of some history. Since the days of Martin Luther King, Jr. in the 1960’s, never has there ever been protests against racial injustice as large, as prolonged and as widespread as what is currently happening in the USA. The killing of George Floyd in broad daylight hit a collective nerve across the world. My President is Black, and even he, amidst the complexities of international diplomatic relations, found it best to express his support for what’s happening in America. On behalf of the people of the Republic of Ghana, President William Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo expressed his condolences to the family and loved ones of the late George Floyd. He further stated that Ghana stands with “our kith and kin in America in these difficult and trying times, and we hope that the unfortunate, tragic death of George Floyd will inspire a lasting change in how America confronts head on the problems of hate and racism”. We have all seen the footage of police officer Derek Chauvin smirk while he literally asphyxiates a handcuffed black man by placing his knee on George Floyd’s neck… in broad daylight… while Floyd repeatedly said “I can’t breathe”, “Mama”, and “please”… while onlookers were recording everything in plain sight… while onlookers were screaming at him to stop. Question: Where does one get the audacity and the misplaced vim to commit such a gruesome crime when he ironically yet legally is law-enforcement? Answer: The system. Law enforcement had a big part to play in America’s complicated history with African Americans. Before they were African Americans, they were legally Slaves, Cargo. It is only logical to boldly infer that, back then, back a couple centuries ago, US law enforcement were trained to be racist, because that was the law, back then… because law enforcement to them would literally mean enforcing laws that are now racist, but back then were legal and widely accepted. It makes sense, the inference makes sense. Nonetheless, when slavery is abolished, but the systems and institutions that are put in place aren’t fully purged of the very protocols and processes that make racism work, then what’s the point. A system works only when IT WORKS. Now, the African American community together with overwhelming support from all over the world is saying the system isn’t working that well for the race of former slaves. That’s what all this commotion is about. That’s what all the marching and protesting is about. It’s not for an infinity gauntlet to snap racists and racism out of existence. It’s an open admission that there will always be racism in the hearts and minds of some part of society but when systemic enablers are legally in place to facilitate and/or exonerate the illegal, how is that even remotely fair to the victims that are suspiciously predominantly the black community?  The marching and the protests is their roaring cry out just like George Floyd did that the system is and has been suffocating them too. Martin Luther King, Jr. would be having nightmares by now because this is so not his dream. In his own words, It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up, live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” Understand that George Floyd wasn’t an armed robber or some dangerous criminal to warrant such harsh approach by the police officers. Harsh is an understatement if you’d want to catalogue all the unfortunate incidents that culminated to these protests. I had a healthy debate with a gentleman last week who argued that US Police has a zero tolerance for crime and therefore should be more understood. I understand. I understand that the logical basis for the Zero-Tolerance Policing is that if

The current set of circumstances create an ecosystem that happens to be the perfect condition for some enterprises to thrive and thrive really well. But that’s like discussing all the benefits of fire while your house is burning to ashes. It wouldn’t be the best time, would it? Nonetheless, The New Normal will catalyse many pending changes that was told to be forthcoming while sparking the innovation of many brand new ways of conducting business. Take automation for instance. The trumpet on automation replacing the jobs of millions was sounded a long time ago. After seeing how this pandemic affected human resource, there’s no stopping it because the sense it makes has now gotten more evident. Machines can’t catch a virus. And this is only one instance of why people need a Plan B for their source of income or a more strategic Plan A. The New Normal will prevail even after this coronavirus. Companies will not stop using Zoom and Microsoft Teams for correspondence. If some things worked well during the pandemic, they will be retained as norm. Everyone is now fully aware of the indisputable fact that the world will never be the same again. It is the people who get a workaround to the issues of this novel coronavirus that will come out on top. One way of coming on top is to start pursuing avenues that are hot right now because of the current set of circumstances creating an ecosystem that happens to be the perfect condition for some enterprises to thrive and thrive really well, as mentioned earlier. It’s simple, really: in a time of need, people have… well… needs, needs they otherwise wouldn’t have, be it an increase in the number of already existing needs or the emergence of new needs. If you fulfil any of the suddenly abundant needs as a service, you get to help others and also get paid in return. A double win! I’m not selling sure-bankers. These are all facts, and this is an opinion piece. ______________________________________ CONTENT CONSUMPTION: Ghana might have lifted the partial lockdown but around the world, most countries are still very much inside. During these lockdowns, billions around the world have started consuming more content; Netflix, YouTube, Facebook, TV Shows, Books, you name it. The increase in demand also meant that people create more content now and there has been the emergence of new content creators that are creating for the first time. They are going to need help. If you possess the requisite skill or can direct your services at them, then helping these new content creators can be a new line of income. They’d need help to better focus their content. Editing is another big way of improving on the work of first-timers. One could offer services that repurpose content for more varied consumption. We are definitely going so see an increase in the number of services that help content creators. You should get in on it now.  STRUGGLING ARTISTS: Shatta Wale has been very vocal about how the industry isn’t helping artists like musicians. Well, he’s worth millions of dollars and currently doesn’t qualify for the tag of “struggling artist” but artists are struggling. Artists have been struggling and during this pandemic they’re struggling even the more. Artists do have one sellable commodity in abundance: talent. If you can create a medium (app or others) where various artists teach others their craft, there’ll be a huge audience you can pander to. During this pandemic, many have upped their consumption of electronic content. Many are using this time to learn new things and the opportunity to learn from a talented artist would be enticing. Don’t forget that famous artists will offer an already existing set of customers that’ll eagerly engage with your medium for access to their favourite artists. By putting on other artists that need this source of income, it can be a win-win for everybody when your paid-service offers them just that. UNEMPLOYED GRADUATES: This category of the population have their main problem already concisely explained on their label: they’re educated but unemployed. The pandemic barely affects their employment status. But when you have to start looking at The New Normal and how it has changed corporate protocols, you’d realise many companies are suddenly very ok with remote work. With those companies on one hand, look at the other hand of a very big pool of academic talent that would otherwise have had trouble breaking the shackles of unemployment. Lightbulb, cha-ching. This is the time that companies will be open to remote work solutions. With the number of graduates out there with bankable skills and no money, you should be able to shop their skills to companies open to remote work. They get quality yet affordable human resource, the graduates get work and you should be able to get some work done in the middle of all of that.  If you can reach skilful graduates willing to work, and companies open to remotely employing for their kind of business, through a medium you create, it could work out great. PUBLIC SPEAKING: The pandemic has hit professional speakers badly. I should even add speakers at religious gatherings like the Pastors to this category, and Comedians. After the partial lockdown was lifted, that on gatherings remains in place. International Speakers cannot travel because of flight restrictions as well. Speakers need help. The biggest meeting location has always been the internet, the web. Now, it’s like that’s all we have. But not many old-timers understand how to harness it’s power. With a lot of their followers flocking to the web, you can earn decent amounts of money helping speakers book virtual gigs if that’s something you’d be interested in mastering. There’s a lot of virtual conferences happening right now and you getting them such gigs will be something speakers will be ready to pay for. Or, think bigger and help speakers create their own conferences and other events. Or think even bigger and turn some of their past speaking engagements into books. Most of these speakers say