Why You Should Not Stigmatize Discharged Covid-19 Patients

While a discharged covid-19 patient is grateful and happy on one hand to have survived a near death situation, he/she gets even more disheartened when either family members, neighbors, colleagues or others in society begin to avoid them like a plague.

To even buttress people’s apprehension when it comes to interacting with discharged covid-19 patients, there have been recorded cases of some of them experiencing a relapse of covid-19 after being discharged. An health expert who spoke on National TV today referred to such relapsing covid-19 cases recorded in China and said she can say with certainty that relapsing can occur in discharged covid-19 patients.

Even though no case of relapsing has been recorded in Nigeria yet, trust Nigerians’ suspicions and fear to intensify when it comes to relations with discharged covid-19 patients.

Although the fears of those avoiding discharged covid-19 patients is not baseless, such fears are largely borne out of ignorance or outright refusal to apply acquired knowledge where applicable.
From all the covid-19 enlightenment that has been going on through various media, it is obvious that as long as you practice the preventionary measures against covid-19, you will remain safe.

Let me remind us that there are carriers of the coronavirus who do not show symptoms of covid-19 and can spread the germs. So for those of us who avoid discharged covid-19 patients like a plague, you need to know that even someone who has not fallen sick of recent, or who is not coughing, sneezing or exhibiting any form of ailment may also be carrying the coronavirus hence, the need to wear our facemasks, observe social/physical distancing as much as possible.
It all means that we can still interact with others, whether they were discharged from a covid-19 treatment centre or not; as long as we observe social distancing, wear protective equipment, wash our hands regularly, avoid touching our faces with unwashed hands, frequently hand-sanitize and so on and so forth.

I hope we know that the psychological and emotional trauma such discharged patients experience each time they are stigmatized will rather endanger them. What if we are the ones in their shoes? God forbid but, won’t we rather be treated with love and acceptance after surviving a killer disease such as covid-19.

Think about it; while you are avoiding a discharged covid-19 patient and yet let down your guard when interacting with others just because they have not been sick or showing covid-19 symptoms, some of those people may be asymptomatic carriers of coronavirus or are yet in the window period before symptoms get visible.

My point is this; if while on our facemasks and observing physical distancing we confidently interact with people among whom we do not know if there is a carrier or infected person, yet feel safe, we ought to be our brothers’ keepers by simply treating discharged covid-19 patients as humans and not as plagues that we should run away from. We can simply observe social distancing and wear a protective mask while interacting with them.

This reminds me of the stigmatization of HIV/AIDS patients. It took a while before people started coming to terms with the fact that merely associating with them does not pass the infection around; as long as blood or body fluids from an infected person does not mix with another’s blood or body fluids.

Popular opinion even suggests that stigmatization kills faster than actual diseases. We need to therefore treat sick or discharged people kindly.

Once the larger populace stop stigmatizing discharged covid-19 patients, it would go a long way in our collective healing as a nation and such a positive attitude will help us to conquer the pandemic.

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