I find human beings to be somewhat funny and I don’t mean in the “haha” sense in relations to the Pandemic we are faced with. Historically any Epidemics and Pandemics tends to incite xenophobia and stigma in society.
It’s been a little over two years since the Covid-19 outbreak, yet we still have so many controversies about it. Specific ethnical groups are being wrongfully targeted all due to fear.
I respect people’s wishes for not getting the vaccine, that’s an individual’s right, however, as such they need to respect the protocols mandated to keep the public from spreading the virus.
Well developed countries have lost a lot of their health care workers to either death from contracting Covid-19 or from extreme exhaustions, so the hospitals and clinics are recruiting from anywhere that have qualified health care providers.
The downside of these recruitments are that it is taking away from the smaller nation’s health care providers, leaving these nations under staffed, which in turn causes burnt out staff and more seriously the patients are under cared for.
Covid-19 Protocols are set in place to detect and prevent the virus from spreading within communities. This virus has no eyes for any particular racial or ethnical group. It just blindly infects at random, hence the importance in the protocols set in place.
People within the communities need to come to a united front as in the old days to ensure no one is left behind or struggling to make it. Aid does not necessarily have to be physical, but there is a saying, “If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. If you teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime.”
Empowering people with the right knowledge and tools will reassure the communities that this Pandemic will soon be an endemic, so the more people know and understand, the less fear it will cause.
Due to the fear of this Pandemic, some people are thinking more in the line of growing their own fruits, vegetables and root crops, which I think is a smart move on their part. That’s money saved and if imports slows down and local markets can’t support the communities’ demands, the person with a garden can still feed his/her family.
Closing borders is not going to help matters, instead it’ll make it worse for so many reasons. Palau is not fully developed to afford closing its borders.
The rumor mill and stigmatizations need to stop. The people living on the island who are tirelessly working day in and day out to facilitate the Covid-19 testing and all other preventive measures do not need the negative connotations being put out online.
Covid-19 is in house, everyone needs to learn to live with it and offer each other support in the way of positivity, unity and empowerment.
PCC works hand in hand with the Ministry of Human Resources, Culture, Tourism and Development (HRCTD) and the Ministry of Health and Human Services (MHHS) to conduct necessary training for those in need, so go check them out. This is public knowledge.
It is so easy to sit back and point fingers at others, but the island is not one person’s property, it belongs to all who call it home and as such, everyone need to play their part to ensure that this Pandemic does not reap away what it means to be a true Palauan, the unique people with generous and caring hearts.