SCIENCE VS FANTASY: WHICH ONE WILL SOLVE THE COVID-19 PROBLEM?

The year 2020 will be remembered as the year that the pandemic called the Covid-19 had started spreading around the world. As of this writing, Covid-19 had already affected more than 3 million people and had already claimed more than 250 thousand lives globally. The number of individuals that will be affected is expected to rise in the coming months until a solution is discovered.  As a logical, rational and a non-believing person, I am expecting that the solution to this problem will come from the realm of science, medicine and technology.

We humans who are alive today are very fortunate to be witnessing the current technological advancement in communications and medicine that we get to obtain information about the current pandemic from around the world quickly and that we also get to have easy access to any potential medical solution to the Covid-19 illness.  Technological advancement in communications like television and internet are so accessible to everyone that we get to know a lot of useful facts that will help everyone from getting the Covid-19 sickness, specially that this illness is very contagious through human personal contact.  And I am also happy to see people in the field of health care use the technological advancement in medicine as a means to help individuals recover from the sickness brought about by the Covid-19 virus. Science and Technology, therefore, has been always helping mankind throughout history in dealing with any pandemic problems.

But despite the technical developments in medicine and communications, there are still a lot of people today who use the current technological communication platform as a method to spread dishonesty, deceitfulness and lies when it comes to the issue of Covid-19. I see a lot of written posts online, like passages from the Christian Bible that encourage people to pray to their god because some believe that their god will be the one to find the solution to this pandemic. And it’s so ironic too that other believers of the same Christian god say that it was their god that created the virus in order to punish mankind for tolerating homosexuality in society. Even some television channels are showing prayers called the Oratio Imperata, a prayer that the local church recommended when a grave need or calamity occurs. But has anybody even bothered to present any proofs that prayers had solved any of the pandemics of the past?

The Black Death was the most fatal pandemic that was ever recorded in human history. This illness took place between the years 1347 and 1351. And this pandemic claimed about 200 million lives. There were a number of fatalities back then due to a few facts, one of them was that, the medical technology during those times was way too primitive to handle such a deadly pandemic. But ironically, prayers to a god did not help at all.

Another epidemic that took place, which was considered as one of the deadliest epidemic illness that claimed a number of human lives, is the 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic. This epidemic, which happened more than a hundred years ago, had affected around 500 million people and killed about 50 million lives. And it was not prayers to a god that eradicated this disease. According to Wikipedia, one explanation for the rapid decline in the lethality of the disease is that doctors became more effective in prevention and treatment of the pneumonia that developed after the victims had contracted the virus.  The improved status of the medical technology of the times helped solve the Spanish flu dilemma.  

The most recent health pandemic that humankind experienced before the Covid-19 happened was the H1N1 swine flu pandemic that took place in the year 2009. This pandemic had affected around 1.6 million people and killed about 18 thousand lives. A vaccine created by medical scientists were discovered in the same year which led to the eradication of the virus. Prayers nor beliefs in the existence of a god actually never took part in solving this swine flu dilemma.

Looking at the pattern of the effectiveness of the health care methodology from past to present, the trend is very clear right in front of us. As time moves forward, so does the efficiency of the science and medical technology of the times. We humans had always been presented by history with the fact that relying on science and medical technology does solve a lot of health problems. And it will solve more complex health predicaments in the future. What science does is the very opposite of what praying to a god does.

By Roderick Tubil