Wear your mask. Wash your hands. Social distance. Stay home. Get vaccinated. And blame the government.
Blame the government because it is their inadequate response to COVID-19 that caused the recent spike in cases and deaths. Since June 1, Liberia’s social media has been flooded with death news, many from COVID. As reported on the National Public Health Institute of Liberia’s Facebook page, 34 Liberians have died from the virus between June 1 and now. However, given the poor state of our vital statistics system and our limited testing capacity, the number of positive cases and deaths might be far higher.
Of course, people have asked if God is angry with us, if June 2021’s legacy is death, given that May’s most trending topic was matrimonial infidelity. God is not angry, and June’s legacy is not death. People are dying of the government’s ineptitude, incompetence, insouciance, and indolence.
Since March 2020, this government’s response has been disastrous. They have failed to protect the people of Liberia and have not shown any real leadership.
In April 2020, the government instituted a set of unclear lockdown rules that it quickly ignored. Almost everyone with a connection to the government or someone in the government, had a COVID-19 pass, defeating the point of the lockdown. There was no desire to enforce the curfew after the first few weeks.
The Mayor of Monrovia unleashed a task force of untrained contact tracers in communities, without any consideration that those same people could aid the virus spread. Monrovia City Corporation (MCC) had subverted the nation’s community health apparatus to set up a parallel structure, but no one thought to call them out on this.
The National Public Health Institute of Liberia (NPHIL), set up after Ebola to lead and coordinate effective responses to epidemics and pandemics, failed to rise to the occasion. They fumbled test results. They failed at clear communication. Dr. Mosoka Fallah, NPHIL’s head, was eventually fired.
The government was slow to react to minimize the impact of the economic fallout. Their best solution was food distribution. While countries across the world instituted multi-pronged strategies of direct cash relief, small business support, and others, they opted to distribute food. This might have been fine, except it took over 4 months for the food distribution to start after the funds were appropriated.
Before the distribution, there were major controversies around how the funds would be used, including a statement from the World Food Programme (WFP) that it did not charge the government $9 million to distribute food. There was no plan in place to target the most vulnerable or do any serious back checks to ensure food reached the people who needed it most. Until now, poor people in Liberia have not received their COVID-19 relief. It is no surprise that the Senate was unimpressed with Prof. Wilson Tarpeh’s report on how the funds had been used.
The President and members of his cabinet embarrassed the entire country and wasted tax dollars to transport an unproven cure from Madagascar.
By December, there was a consensus that COVID-19 was a thing of the past. Everyone campaigned and everyone partied as new variants sprung up across the world.
In January 2021, the President even cited an editorial by Tom Frieden, the former head of the Center for Disease Control (CDC), that praised Liberia’s exemplary approach to responding to COVID for “best at learning from recent epidemics.” Frieden praised Liberia for actions such as setting up hand washing stations at the airport, “rapid testing, complete contact tracing, and quarantine.”
These were all lies. Beneath the glossy endorsements lie hard truths. Test results were delayed. People traveling into Liberia never received their results. The contact tracing system was a disaster (the government had to resort to calling people names on the radio), and people evaded quarantine because the facilities lacked basic amenities. The Ministry of Health knew it. The people of Liberia knew it. Our development partners knew it. The only person who did not know was the President because he is detached from reality, unconcerned with details, and allergic to critical thinking. For a man who has been largely absent for most of the pandemic, it is no surprise that someone put that in his speech, and he could not tell he was reciting lies.
The health authorities stopped testing people except those traveling as testing travelers was a source of revenue. The testing process is unnecessarily complicated and long and many people missed their flights because they did not get their results on time. As more variants emerged, the government was still not releasing results for incoming travelers. We failed to stop passengers coming to Liberia from India or South Africa. NPHIL stopped its updates. The Incidence Management System (IMS) reduced the frequency of their meetings. The vaccines arrived but there was limited effort to educate the public about taking them.
Then the President went on his county tour with a large group that attracted even larger crowds. People barely wore masks on these trips and visits. It is unclear if the President has been vaccinated.
Fast forward to June 2021: COVID cases start to rise and Liberia detects a new variant. Doctors, many of whom have not been paid, raise alarm about the new wave. It takes a few weeks before there is any serious engagement from the Ministry of Health. The Minister announces new measures. They are confusing and inadequate. We learn about the Legislative Engagement Projects. We learn that the Ministry of Health rejected Senator Dillon’s donation because it was not sure about the “source” of the money and did not want to be involved in controversy.
Hospitals are out of oxygen and beds. Doctors are under immense pressure. There is a rush to take vaccines, but we are running out. People are running out of time because we have a government that failed to take the pandemic seriously and failed in its responsibility to protect. Take a look at our budget, and you will see that we spend more on “Legislative Engagement Projects” than we do on pharmaceutical products. You will also see that there is no money for “Coronavirus” in the FY2021 Special Budget, no money for “hazard payment project,” and a paltry $1 million for “pandemic and epidemic response.” The FY22 projection for pandemic response is less than $200k.
We have a full-blown health crisis at a moment when leadership is sorely lacking. The Ministry has yet to issue additional directives. The Legislators have yet to ask the Ministry of Health why they failed to give test results to people entering Liberia. The President keeps sending pre-recorded messages. He is about to go to France with an unnecessarily large team for a Gender Equality Forum while there is no money to fight the virus.
The government is responsible for the recent spike in death. We need to hold them accountable and demand they do better.
Going forward, the government needs to institute a lockdown or a curfew, however painful it may be, and impose serious fines for violators. They need to expand testing, give out results, and quickly set up structures to treat patients. They need to regularly brief the nation to emphasize the seriousness of the crisis. They need to communicate better to encourage the belief that the virus exists and empower people to take prevention measures. We will be in this crisis for a long time given the shortage of vaccines, but we can all contribute by taking precautions while the government shows leadership.
When this crisis is over, we need to set up a commission to investigate the government’s failures to ensure we are adequately prepared next time because what has happened so far has been negligent and disgraceful.
Authored by Demosthenes
