USP for Ayurveda?

There is a lot of talk on social media and other sources about local Ayurveda being able to handle and even cure Covid-19 better than western medicine. There are posts about people well into their 80s being cured in a matter of days. Of course, there have been a few major setbacks to Ayurveda related claims thanks to the ‘Dhammika Pani’ saga and the unmitigated failure thereof.

We all know what the collapse of the Tourism industry has done to the Pearl. All those involved in this industry are desperately searching for a USP or a Unique Selling Preference/Point that we can use for tourism in this country. I present to you O denizens oof the Pearl a possibility. If we can produce accurate, authenticated records of cures, backed by science we may have the goose that will lay the golden egg. If we are able to say that should someone get infected while on tour in our fair isle, we can provide not just the standard western facilities but a proven indigenous cure, surely, we will be on to a winner? We can even offer the indigenous cure at the airport for arrivals to take with them should they have any symptoms.

It is pretty obvious that total eradication of the disease from society is not possible in the short term. People will start travelling again, in fact, they already have. What the international traveller will look for is proven ways to handle the disease should they get it. So will the insurance companies that today’s tourist is so dependent on. Surely the government should invest in establishing proper credentials for these indigenous cures? Either way, it is a win-win situation; should the cures be scientifically proven to work with credible data the benefits are immense, on the other hand, should they be proven unreliable the people of the country will benefit by not succumbing to false hopes.

Lockdowns and other restrictions only have limited success. This fact is becoming more and more clear in Aotearoa – New Zealand. The Main city after five weeks of level 4 (the highest level) lockdown and another week and a half of level 3 lockdown has today declared 45 new cases in the community. This is a huge setback as the number of cases was in the ’20s for a while and even came down to single digits for one day. Of course, one of the main reasons could be that most people are visiting each other, and some are not getting vaccinated in spite of the regulations that forbid visits and virtual pleas from the government and even financial incentives from employers to get vaccinated. If a society as responsible as New Zealand is breaking these regulations it only means that restrictions on the movement of people cannot be controlled by the government.

It looks like opening up freedom of movement with the onus on the individual to get vaccinated or not and to take precautions or not is what will happen in the future. Of course, countries that have the medical facilities to handle other outbreaks of the pandemic will find this easier to do. New Zealand has a problem with very limited ICU facilities and even fewer numbers of trained nurses. All qualified nurses, together with most other professionals are quickly snapped up by Australia as the wages are better and living expenses are much less in that country.

Harassing the press

The harassment of journalists using the totally politicised moribund and useless Police force seems to be on the cards again. The garlic racket, sugar racket, ongoing rice hoarding and price-fixing all involve politicians of different hues but identical “cretinity”! Their alleged crimes have a bigger impact and have caused much more damage to the Country than the alleged crimes of a certain state minister who has already resigned, pending (a token?) investigation. It is amazing how journalists and others who report the food rackets are hauled up to the dreaded fourth floor of the criminal investigation department of the police force but no politician in power ever graces those premises.

How can a president, voted into power on the implicit belief of the majority that he would “clean up” the country and bring back social discipline even sleep at night let alone travel the world in luxury and visit his grandchild leaving his country and those millions of voters in their present predicament?

Power to the Youth

The call of late has been that the youth of today can do a much better job than the old stagers who run the show. All I can say is look at the Covid vax statistics and reflect; reflect on how the youth seem to be guided by insidious allegations with no proof, how they seem to be displaying a callous disregard for the rest of the humanity and more importantly to even their parents and direct relatives who have actually brought them into this world and nurtured them through early life when they were basically helpless. In some cases, they live under the same roof as their parents, share the same spaces but show no cognizance of the fact. Should they get infected when they are unvaccinated the probability of ending up in hospital and causing much strife (mentally and financially) to the very parents who they live with is of no consequence to these youth who consider it the bounden duty of the parents to pander to their every whim and fancy. Even if the parents and caregivers have been vaccinated, they may still get a dose of the disease from infected close contacts and if the older generation has some inherent condition like diabetes, the consequences could be dire. Imagine if they were in charge of running this world? I can only paraphrase a famous quote attributed to George Bernard Shaw and Oscar Wilde; Youth is a wonderful thing; it is such a pity that it is wasted on the young!