My Brother Mark Ekitela who is currently in China when he heard about the confirmed cases of Corona Virus in Kenya called me to inquire of how the situation is here at home. I sought also to find out how the situation is in the country that the Virus originated from. My friend! how the Chinese Government is tackling the Corona Virus compared to what we are doing in this part of the world is a joke.
In China the level of technological advancement has made it easy for them to tackle the spread of the Corona Virus, unlike our call to wash Hands, Sanitizer or the Government imposed night curfew, China is using Data and daily surveillance to track down its citizens.
In China every street has surveillance Cameras, at least in every street there is a face scanner, the scanner will scan faces and send it to the Government database, each and every individual is accounted for, the exact position they are in and who they interact with.
Chinese people and those in China support the government's efforts in fighting the pandemic, every individual has a role to play, they are cooperating by giving information to the Government, by taking their temperatures daily and sending them to the government, they are able to prepare for and notify Government agencies to respond rapidly to any case of the virus.
Moreover, Social media like Facebook, Twitter are restricted with massive use of Wechat Messager as the preferred messaging app., WeChat that is integrated to their shopping Card and can be monitored by the government, such that what you buy or who you chat with is known to the Government. This makes it easy that when you contract the virus the Government will easily trace the people you came into contact with, texting them to self-quarantine.
On data management, I tend to think the Government of Kenya should have leveraged on social media or at least borrow from what digital money lenders. You see when you install an app say for example Tala the app will request permission to access your Contacts, your messages and your location your camera, etc. If you grant access Tala will be able to read your text messages, monitor your movements, use your camera at will.
My suggestion on the Data management is the government should develop an app and make it mandatory for everyone, have it installed in all smartphones, use the same technology as Digital Moneylenders to monitor people during this time of Corona Virus. This will at least help track the people who may have come into contact with the confirmed cases.
To me Washing hands and putting up a washing point in every door makes us look naive. It is like we are washing hands because the Virus flies from Wuhan and targets our palms as their landing spot. We appear like people who have no clue how the Virus is controlled such that we are all worried to get out there and expose our fingers to the flying virus.
What we need now is a strategy to first of all trace the people who came into contact with the confirmed cases, get hold of them and put them isolation. Put down a tracking infrastructure by leveraging on the existing technologies but most importantly put up a '' firewall'' that will protect us from further exposure. My firewall, in this case, is a proper screening of people arriving from abroad, more information to the people and call for cooperation by all citizens.
