Dry Gin: A Cure For CoronaVirus || Just Another Conspiracy Theory

Good day Hivans

Growing up was fun. I know it was fun for you too. In Africa where I hail from, especially from the Nigerian roots, conspiracy theories were used by parents to create an atmosphere of order and fear in the hearts of the children to make the children morally upright. These theories were mostly unfounded lies with no evidence to prove otherwise until when we grew and became adults. Then, our eyes opened to what the truths about these theories were.

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One such theory is that whenever it rains and the sun shines at the same time, it is an indication that an elephant is on delivery. We believed this with all our hearts until we started to watch the national geographic channel where it was proved wrong. Elephants only give birth when their gestation period is completed. The truth is that elephants have the longest gestation period of all mammals that exist on land. A whole period of twenty-two months is when an elephant carries the pregnancy. That's nearly two years. When the two years are completed, the pregnant elephant is expected to give birth to one or two calves.

Beyond this, more conspiracy theories have been proved wrong with the most recent happenings. Among these theories is one that I held close to my heart until when it was revealed that it's all falsehood.

Anna Pyshnuik

Covid-19 Has Emptied Africa

During the recent outbreak of the coronavirus, some folks around the Western world held the belief that Africa had been wiped off or would be wiped off in no time.
We all know that the outbreak of the deadly virus came at such a time when Africa was rated zero in healthcare or medical services. Medical facilities in Africa were so underrated. And since there were lots of deaths from health consequences in part of Europe, it was believed that Africa would have the worst experience. But it turned out to be the reverse.
The theory above caused a lot of fear among Africans who then resorted to drinking a lot of alcohol. The brand of alcohol that was concentrated on was dry gin.
During the lockdown era where social distancing was the order of the day, you will still find young men in clustered apartments taking dry gin (Ogogoro) which had been mixed with one herb or the other.

In addition, women started to cook food especially meat with high-level ingredients like salt, ginger, onion, and garlic. With the belief that this condiment is highly antibiotic and would kill the virus perhaps it has had contact with the food.

A Wrong Theory All Together

It was proved wrong when more advertisements started popping up on the television screen and radio. I remember vividly how the Nigeria News Agency announced that a virus does not die.

Neither can Ogogoro or those mentioned condiments kill the virus. With time, people in this part of the world started to take things more seriously. Though, a whole lot of people still believed that the coronavirus was the white man's disease and that was why only a few deaths were recorded in Africa.

One thing that caused the widespread of this theory was illiteracy and poverty.

Illiteracy in the sense that uneducated people thought that the coronavirus disease was for some set of people and as such continued with their day-to-day activity despite the warning of social distancing. The villages and rural areas were not affected by these laws of handwashing and sanitizing after wash, social distancing, and whatnot.

Poverty was a factor because the palliative that was shared during the lockdown did not go around. As such, people who didn't get the package sought out their needs by going out of their homes to look for food. On the other hand, the palliative did not serve some homes for more than a few days. Unlike in the developed countries where every account holder got as much as $4,000 (four thousand dollars), in Nigeria, the food items that ought to be shared were kept in warehouses by the so-called politicians who had ulterior motives. We all know the drama that played out. When people discovered that palliative items were kept in one warehouse or the other, they broke into it and carted away food items. A simple way to describe the level of hunger in the land.