Lead image by me.
My friend was telling me and my other friends about when she was on a bus shortly after the first Covid-19 lockdown was eased. She was the only person that wore a nose mask out of about 11 people on the bus. The funny thing was that the nose mask wasn't an issue till they saw a policeman ahead and the driver urged them to put on their nose mask so that police wouldn't fine him rather than wearing it to stay safe. They went on to talk about how Coronavirus wasn't real and hounded my friend in the bus on why she was putting on a nose mask.
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The people I mean in this context are people who refuse to follow the Covid-19 guidelines because they believe in some conspiracy or the other.
Frankly, I can't count how many times I've been harassed or close to being harassed because I chose to stay safe.
1) Firstly, there was this day, last year, I was trying to enter a motorbike because I was late for my appointment, I was trying to negotiate the price with this bike man and he claimed he couldn't hear me, I spoke louder and he did hear me.
The man then went on to suggest that I remove my nose mask then he and his friend talked about how stupid I was for putting it on, they claimed it was only some government propaganda and went as far as trying to pull my nose mask.
2) Earlier this year, around mid-July, the institution I attend reported few cases of Coronavirus cases, we were all sent home to resume lectures online.
I was very pissed at this, I just wanted to finish my exams and move on to the next semester, we were behind by one year already due to the Coronavirus outbreak and ASUU strike( this was because the government didn't keep to their agreement, it's a very long story).
When I got home, people asked me why I was home and I explained that it was due to the few cases of Coronavirus on campus. They laughed in my face, they said the school was in cahoots with the government and that Coronavirus isn't real.
3) I once went out forgetting to use my mask, I had gotten halfway to my destination, I went back home to take my mask because there wasn't anywhere that I could buy when I realized that I wasn't on nose mask. People were looking at me with bewildered expressions saying "is the mask that important?"
I would have bought a new mask but there wasn't anyone selling around where I realized that I wasn't wearing a mask.
We’re not just fighting an epidemic; we’re fighting an infodemic. Fake news spreads faster and more easily than this virus, and is just as dangerous -WHO(2020a)
Some of those theories are that the 5G cellular network causes the virus or that Bill Gates uses vaccination by implanting a digital microchip that'll track and control people. There's also a theory that the virus escaped from a Chinese lab in Wuhan and that it was created by Chinese scientists as a biowarfare weapon. There's one that said the death rate was inflated or the virus was fake.
Whether those theories are true or false is not something that I'm not willing to test with my health, it's not something we should test with our lives.
As I was going out this morning, I barely saw anyone wearing a mask, as usual. All over the world, new cases are still discovered every day.
All we need to do is wear a mask, use a sanitizer and practice social distancing, let's protect ourselves.
If you haven't taken the vaccine, please do to reduce the fatality rate.
I hope we all stay healthy.
Thank you for reading.
Yeah covid19 is real!